Richard Stankiewicz (1922-1983), the American sculptor whose whimsical scrap-iron constructions made him one of the pioneers of "junk art" and assemblage, established his reputation by taking pipes, nuts, bolts, screws, clockworks and other scrap from junkyards and welding them into carefully ordered sculptural compositions that both respected the fragmentary, arbitrary character of the materials and transformed them. Noted for their particular form of humanity and wit, Stankiewicz’s sculptures used incongruity and the judicious placement of ‘ready-made’ objects to call attention to traits of the human figure. In his later sculptural works, the forms were often larger, bulkier; the compositions had an unmistakable rigor and weight. As the humor and choice of materials became less conspicuous in his work, and it was easier to recognize the formal intelligence and high purpose that had guided him all along.