Roberts is of course most famous for the obverse of the Kennedy Half Dollar. He was also instrumental in the design of the Franklin Half, but we have plenty of threads about those coins. I'd like to post some of his coinage and medals other than those, both from the US and Franklin Mints. The Community College of Pennsylvania occupies the building that was once the third Philadelphia mint (1901-1969). Roberts worked there for two decades, and the college set up an exhibit in his honor. The webpage is here, although the videos are disabled for some reason. But click on "Listen to the Audio Tour" which has lots of clips of Roberts speaking about his art and career. It's quite interesting. (I'll have to get down to that exhibit as I live in Pennsylvania.) Also, Ray Herz gave a brief overview of Gilroy Roberts at FUN in 2012. The video is on Youtube here. Definitely worth a watch... I'll start by posting this medal of William Howard Brett, director of the US Mint from July 1954 to January 1961. The obverse is by Roberts, who throughout his career was a master of portraiture. This is #317 in Medals of the United States Mint (Failor and Haydn), and the catalog describes the reverse as such: "The kneeling female figure represents the Mint. Allegorical figures surround the central figure, depicting mining, assaying, melting and refining, and coining. The seal of the Treasury Department appears below." The reverse was designed by Engelhardus von Hebel, who is another interesting artist, but that's a story for another time. I don't know how many of these medals were struck, but it's the only one I've come across - I found it on eBay recently. I've never seen another. It has homogenous specking all over it, which makes me think there was something about the alloy that caused it to tone that way...
I mentioned in my first post that Roberts was a master of portraiture. Perhaps his magnum opus in that regard was this Bicentennial medal struck by the Franklin mint. It's remarkable how all thirty faces are easily recognizable and expressive. I've never seen anything like it. It's a bronze proof 2 1/2 inches diameter. The key to the portraits is given in the packaging... Roberts left the position of chief engraver of the US Mint to go into private business, which had never been done before. (Has it ever been done since? I don't know.) His rationale was that you can get comfortable and artistically dull in a secure government job, whereas private industry forces you to stay imaginative.
I hope I don't get banned for posting stamps on a coin forum, but there's only one way to find out. Gilroy Roberts was the only artist to work both as an engraver for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and as a sculptor for the Mint. The stamps he designed were for the Famous Americans Commemorative Postage Series of the 1940's, and included inventor Eli Whitney, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and songsmith Stephen Foster. I have them in sets of four... As a young artist, Roberts took classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, and caught the attention of US Mint Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock (designer of the Roosevelt dime and Franklin half dollar), who just happened to be a friend of Roberts' mother. Gilroy began work at the Mint in 1936, but it ended abruptly when FDR ordered a cut in government staff in 1938. So he made his way over to the BEP, where he perfected his portraiture skills on stamps. (These are the ones I know of - there may be more.) Roberts returned to the Mint in 1944 as Sinnock's assistant.
Roberts was one of the designers on the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson US Mint Inaugural medals. I have two of them, the Kennedy and Johnson. Both of the busts are by Roberts, whereas other engravers did the reverse designs. (Roberts was very generous about sharing his work with other artists at the mint, whereas his predecessor Sinnock was rather stingy about that.) The Kennedy inaugural medal was basically the foundation for the Kennedy half dollar. They are both 3 inches in diameter and 212 grams...
