Much like our last featured coin designer/artist, our next spotlight has to be quite a sizable one given the amount of work done for and outside of the United States Mint. With perhaps one of the largest résumés of a United States coin designer, this artist has decades of experience in fine art as an illustrator and designer creating drawings, paintings, stamps, murals, coins, and medals across the nation in addition to Europe.
Joel Iskowitz
Born in The Bronx, New York, on August 15, 1946, Joel Iskowitz began his journey and career in arts at a young age. He graduated from the New York High School of Music and Art in 1964 and continued his education in the arts at Hunter College in New York. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Iskowitz would then attend Yale University on a scholarship to enroll in a number of fine arts classes in an effort to increase his skills as an artist. During his years at Hunter College, he would work under Richard Claude Ziemann as an apprentice getting experience in etching and engraving. This would later serve him well as he has produced over 2,000 stamps for 40 different nations.
His early career in the 1970s would lead him to teaching a course at Yale and working as a substitute teacher in the field of mathematics and arts until around 1977. From there, San Francisco would be his home for about a year as he was working as a portrait artist until he would then move back to New York City to work in the music industry. There he lent his talents to album covers and creating works as an illustrator and freelancer. In addition, he would design book covers for young adult and romance novels.
It was not until 2005 that Iskowitz would find himself working for the United States Mint. Applying for the Artistic Infusion Program (AIP), he would become one of a few private artists that could submit their work and designs to be used on United States coins. He remained within the program until March of 2018. However, in that time, he would earn himself the title of “Master Designer of the United States Mint.” Throughout his tenure at the Mint, 54 of his designs were selected for coins and medals in the United States, more than any other American artist or designer in the past.
Iskowitz’s works for the Mint early on included designs for the 50 States Quarter Program and the DC and U.S. Territories Quarters. After those series’ ended, he would go on to create a number of designs for the America the Beautiful Quarters Program. While 2009 marked the celebration of the 200th anniversary of President Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln cent, the Mint would create the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial Cents Program and feature four different reverse designs in honor of the 16th President of the United States. Iskowitz would be responsible for the third design in the series focusing on Lincoln’s “Professional Life.”
In addition to those well-known coins, Iskowitz has created designs for but not limited to Presidential dollar coins, First Spouse Gold coins, Platinum American Eagles, both silver and gold commemoratives, and Congressional gold medals (the Mint chose 17 of his designs). Even some of his designs that were submitted but not yet reviewed have been displayed in the White House and the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History. Some of his paintings and artworks outside of the Mint have been exhibited at the White House, Pentagon, Capitol building, Wright-Patterson United States Air Force Base, The New York Historical Society Museum, The Museum of American Illustration, The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Museum and more. Throughout these spaces, he has depicted and captured some of the nation’s greatest achievements throughout history.
Iskowitz’s achievements do not stop there. He has been featured in numerous publications and magazines in addition to being affiliated with The American Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association, the American Medallic Sculpture Association, Society of Illustrators, and more. His accolades in addition to the Mint’s Master Designer include Hunter College Hall of Fame, NOAA Space Philately Award, COTY awards and nominations, USAF citations, and more. He is by far one of the most successful coin and medal designers to have ever graced the United States Mint’s institution.
Source: USA Coinbook; The Mountain Studio