Roger Phillips was born in New York City in 1930. His education as a metalsmith began on Long Island at age 12 as a blacksmith's helper. He has worked in metal ever since.

His first exposure to art was at the Woodstock Country School in Vermont where he studied with Francis Foster, a teacher from Black Mountain College who ran his classes on the Bauhaus model.

Phillips graduated from Bard College in 1953. He studied drawing and design at the New School and metal fabrication at the Jewish Museum in New York. He is a past president of the Artist-Blacksmith's Association of North America.

His studio/workshop is located in Stuyvesant, New York about 100 miles north of New York City.

A constructivist, Phillips is in private and public collections throughout the United States.

A large portion of his work is kinetic, made of stainless steel and brightly painted aluminum plate. Many pieces are commissioned for specific outdoor sites. Maquettes for some sculptures have been replicated in small editions.

Phillips showed in the 1991 and 1993 Monte Carlo Biennale in Monaco and at Roche Court, Salisbury, England courtesy of the New Art Centre, London. Other exhibitions include Bard College 1999 and the Hudson Opera House, Hudson, NY 2000; Chesterwood in Stockbridge, MA 2002, 2003 and Weber Fine Art, Chatham, NY 2003.

His work can be seen at James Graham & Sons, 1014 Madison Avenue in New York City.

The spirit of the work is captured in this passage from Plato's Philebus Dialog:

"By beauty of shapes I do not mean, as most people would suppose, the beauty of living figures or of pictures... I mean straight lines and circles, and shapes, plane or solid, made from them by lathe, ruler and square. These are not, like other things, beautiful relatively, but always and absolutely."