Leroy Lamis, 84, died Thursday August 19^th 2010 in Austin, TX.   Mr. Lamis was a sculptor and long-time professor of Art at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana.  His Plexiglas sculptures, known for their geometric elegance, were exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and are in the collections of leading museums and private collectors.

As an art student Lamis read the aesthetic theories of Russian brothers and sculptors Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner as well as American artist Richard Lippold. The constructivist ideas struck a deep chord with him that profoundly affected his artistic career.

Leroy Lamis was a fixture in the Wabash Valley art community, and influenced generations of college students as well as elementary school students who visit the Swope Art Museum yearly and are always drawn to his precision Plexiglas cubes.

In the early 1960’s Mr. Lamis found success with art collectors in New York, and was invited to join the Contemporaries Gallery.  In 1964, his sculptures were featured in the Whitney Museum Annual exhibit, and in 1965, Lamis’ pieces were selected for inclusion in one of the most important modern art exhibits of the era, The Responsive Eye at The Museum of Modern Art.

In the late 1970s Lamis shifted from working with reflective and refractive qualities of sheet Plexiglas construction to exploring the possibilities of computer generated work. His self taught computer programming added a kinetic dimension to the abstract geometric style for which he was known. Lamis treated computers as sculptural forms in addition to their on screen and printed output.

Construction # 208 (Cube #208), 1972, an iconic Plexiglas construction by Lamis, is currently on view at the Swope.

The Lamis family has created a memorial website where memories and condolences are being collected: LeroyLamis.org.  In leu of flowers, donations to the Leroy Lamis Art Student Scholarship Fund are being accepted at the website.