Michael Keropian began his professional career and training in the fine arts at the oldest art school in the country, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1978 in Philadelphia, PA. After his first year of fine art training, he majored in sculpture and learned all the many methods of creating sculpture from carving and welding to modeling in clay and plaster and bronze casting. Instructors Alexander Hromych, Tony Greenwood, Karl Karhumaa and David Slivka inspired Michael to continue sculpture as a career. Michael also began training as a conservator both on the plaster castcollection and the as a museum conservator for the PAFA Museum. He also was part of a sculpture moving group who worked at PAFA as well as in the Philadelphia area. In 1984, he worked for Olde Philadelphia Marble Company doing fabrication work as well as Marble conservation.
To further his training in sculpture he moved to New York's Hudson Valley in 1986 and worked for ten years at the Tallix Sculpture Foundry in Beacon, New York. Michael worked on literaly hundreds of sculptures of different styles and mediums during this period and learned the many technical skills that go into making and casting a sculpture into metal. He became an excellent moldmaker and a skilled enlarger using a 3 d pantograph and his sculptural training. Michael made several connections with seasoned sculptors who would become his mentors: Albert W. Wein, Walker Hancock, EvAngelos Frudakis and Frank Gaylord. Their guidence helped Keropian continue on his path as fine sculptor.
In 1989, while still working full time at Tallix, he established Keropian Sculpture LLC and began working after hours to develop his business, Michael Keropian Sculpture LLC, that provides sculptural services and consulting to a variety of clientele.
After leaving the Tallix Foundry in 1996, he continued building Keropian Sculpture LLC and began teaching at a number of schools in the New York Metro area, he now teaches and does workshops both privately and at a number of art schools in the region. Michael's Life Sculpture classes are very sought after as they provide an excellent study of composition, movement, proportions and anatomy of the live model.
Since PAFA training as a conservator of sculpture, Michael has also completed numerous sculpture restorations for a number of private estates, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, National Academy of Design and Fairfield University's Bellarmine Museum.
In 2000, Michael received a commission to create nine heroic-size tigers for the new baseball stadium of the Detroit Tigers, Comerica Park. These tigers are very likely the largest tiger sculptures in the Western Hemisphere.
Since the turn of the century Michael has been commissioned to create a variety of sculptures for public and government projects from medals and bronze plaques to memorials, fountain figures and historical sculptures, many of which can be found on this website.
He has won numerous awards throughout the years. His sculptures can be found in private collections around the world.
Michael is a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society, and is the Sculpture Chairperson for the Hudson Valley Art Association.