Born in Canada and based in Los Angeles and then Ruidoso, New Mexico, Artis Lane is a sculptor whose figurative work, including a bronze portrait of Rosa Parks, has brought her distinction. The Parks sculpture was the first work by a black woman artist to be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. She also designed the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to Parks. Other subjects include Nelson Mandela, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Michael Jordan.

But in 1988, Lane decided to choose subjects restricted to her personal vision of metaphysical truth--in other words, to create figurative works that were universal in meaning rather than specific persons. Many of her pieces since then are generic men and women with generalized titles such as First Man or New Woman, the latter which was exhibited in Washington DC at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Lane did her formal training at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, where she studied primarily drawing and painting.


Source:
Eric Hanks, "Artis Lane", St. James Guide to Black Artists