John Sanders was born into a family that lived with creative endeavor at its very core.

John’s mother Isca Jörgensen-Sanders was a professional opera singer who filled the family home with song. John’s father, Joop Sanders was a first-generation New York School abstract expressionist who participated in the legendary Ninth Street Art Exhibition in 1951. In his youth, John was accustomed to seeing such family friends as Milton Resnick, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Herman Cherry, Leon Polk Smith, and Phillip Pavia.

In his earliest years, John’s family relocated from New York City to Europe, with stints in Amsterdam and Majorca where, as John recalls, “We lived in a castle for roughly $50 a month with a maid.” By the time he was eight the family had settled back in New York for good.

At 14, John was introduced to working with physical materials in an art class and with the encouragement of his father, became a fairly serious sculptor by the age of 16. Joop’s support of and engagement with his son’s creative endeavors was a constant during his very long life. When he was 18 and attending Nassau Community College, John was introduced to working  steel with an oxygen-acetylene torch and welding by the sculptor, Abram Schlemowitz. Among John’s many apprenticeships to sculptors and painters included a particularly long one (about 20 years) to family friend Milton Resnick. Postgraduate studies were carried out in Berkeley, CA, where he became close friends with British sculptor Brian Wall and the ceramic artist Peter Voulkos.

John began showing his work in group shows: Union Carbide Gallery in 1976; Bronx Museum of Arts in 1977. His early one-man shows were at Worth Rider Art Gallery in Berkeley in 1979 and Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York in 1982.

In 1980 John bought a building marked for demolition in the lower east side and built an enormous studio where he worked for several years and focused on the creation of large works. Later, inspired by David Smith’s sculpture practice at Bolton Landing, John converted a dairy farm in Abrahamsville, PA into a large-scale studio and sculpture park, a project he would repeat, beginning in 1994, in Roxbury, NY where he currently lives and works and where hundreds of his sculptures can be seen. John credits the dramatic Catskill mountain views from his property with asserting a strong influence on his practice.