Joel Shapiro, a celebrated American sculptor whose works imbued life-size stick figures with a surprising depth of feeling, died June 14 in Manhattan. He was 83.

From one piece to the next, his figures appear to leap with joy, dance balletically, fall backward, topple onto their heads, or collapse onto the floor into a tangle of arms and legs.

He executed more than 30 large-scale commissions, most notably “Loss and Regeneration,” commissioned for the plaza of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which opened in 1993.

In 1982, at age 41, Mr. Shapiro was honored with a much-praised midcareer retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was also well regarded for his works on paper, especially his abstract compositions in chalk and charcoal.