IRI Co-founder Gerry Eskin Dies

Gerald Eskin, a co-founder of Information Resources Inc. (IRI) died last week aged 76 after complications from heart surgery, in Iowa, USA.

Eskin was born in 1934 in Washington, D.C. and after learning photography as a teenager, was hired as a stringer for the Washington Daily News, covering sports, crime and nightlife. He graduated from the University of Maryland and received a doctorate in economics from the University of Minnesota, then taught marketing and market research at Stanford University and the University of Iowa.

He formed IRI in 1977 in partnership with marketing veteran John Malec. In the ten years after launching supermarket scanner-based purchasing behaviour system BehaviorScan in 1980, IRI grew rapidly into one of the world's largest research firms - IRI's revenues leapt in just three years from $2.8m to $21m by 1983.

Eskin retired from IRI in 1995 and turned his energies to ceramics and sculpture, beginning with plates and cups and moving on to huge and 'haunting' structures often inspired by sarcophagus-type burial containers called ossuaries, boxes for the reburial of human bones, which date from the ancient Chalcolithic period in the Middle East.

His close friend Charles Hindes, Emeritus Professor of Ceramics at the University of Iowa, with whom he studied, said 'His real strength was in sculpture' - in addition to designing and developing the University Art Museum's ceramics collection, he had recent exhibitions at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, and SOFA Chicago at Navy Pier; his work is held in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and he served as Chairman of the advisory board of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts. However, he also worked in digital photography, specialising in huge panoramic landscape prints showing spectacular geological formations and views.

He is survived by his wife, Sandie 'Zoe' Eskin, younger brother, two sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren.

IRI changed its name to SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. last year and a month ago secured an undisclosed amount of investment from private equity group New Mountain Capital, now its majority shareholder. Its home page is at www.symphonyiri.com . More of the artist's work can be found at www.gerryeskinstudio.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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