Best known for his expressive bronze sculptures of female nudes in motion, Arizona sculptor John Henry Waddell was raised in the Midwest and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1955 to 1957 Waddell was the head of art education at the Institute of Design in Illinois, also known as the New Bauhaus, working with such distinguished colleagues as architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and photographers Frederick Sommer, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind. A prolific artist, there are fourteen public venues in Phoenix alone where Waddell's work is on display including a major group of eleven dancing figures at the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix.  He has also had numerous exhibitions and permanent installations throughout the United States. Waddell's work is both sensitive and dramatic, with references to music and dance. Describing the artist's distinctive style, Dr. F. M. Hinkhouse, founding director of the Phoenix Art Museum, said, "The sinuous grace, the unusual stance, the turbulence of the pose, hark back to an ancient secret perfection."