John Mark Sager’s award-winning assemblage and steel sculptures, altered books, and collages have been exhibited across Texas and from New Mexico to New Zealand. He received his BA in Art from Texas Lutheran University (Seguin, TX) and retired after 37 years as a Preparator for the world-class Blanton Art Museum at the University of Texas at Austin. Hooks-Epstein Galleries began representing him in 1994, and Geri Hooks said, “John is one of the few artists who can claim to be truly original in his use of found objects.”
For 15 years, John’s art was selected for yearlong display in Austin City Hall, and in 2018 he served on the selection panel for the annual exhibit. He also appeared in shows at the Austin Museum of Art and the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum. The Austin Chronicle praised John’s sculpture as “complex structures of surpassing beauty” and his insightful collages as “consistently superb.” The H-E-B Foundation’s Laity Lodge in the Hill Country asked him a series of exhibits, and John taught collage at summer retreats there for three years.
His bookwork has been honored by the MAC in Dallas and chosen for national competitions in Denver, Taos, Albuquerque, Galveston, Lubbock and Portland, Oregon. The gallery director for his solo show at the Dadian Gallery in Washington, DC, said, “Sager gathers the detritus of other people’s lives and assembles the disparate parts into evocative, thoughtful, and astonishingly elegant constructions.” New Tart Gallery in New Plymouth, NZ, chose him to create artworks for a tour of five galleries in New Zealand to celebrate seminal box artist Joseph Cornell’s 100th birthday. New Tart has continued to show his art, which was featured in the 20 years of the gallery’s International Collage Exchange.
Now his collages live on in collections in France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Mexico, and Australia, as well as New Zealand and the United States. Davis Gallery in Austin honored him with a retrospective exhibit in 2023 called “50 Years of Building Beauty.” John is included in the book “The Art of Found Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists” from Texas A&M University Press.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION | MAY 17 - JUNE 21, 2025
http://www.hooksepsteingalleries.com/for-the-city-and-for-the-world
