Milton Elting Hebald (May 24, 1917 – January 5, 2015) was a

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

who specialized in figurative bronze works. Twenty-three of his works are displayed in public in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, including the statues of Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest in front of the

Delacorte Theatre The Delacorte Theater is a 1,800-seat open-air theater in Central Park, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is home to the Public Theater's free Shakespeare in the Park productions. Over five million people have attended more than 15 ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

. His major work is a , 12-piece "Zodiac Screen", then the largest sculpture in the world, commissioned by Pan-American Airlines for its

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...

, and now owned and stored by the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorize ...

Early life

Hebald was born in New York City. He studied at several New York art schools, starting at the age of ten, including the Art Students League of New York, the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

and the

Beaux-Arts Institute of Design The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (BAID, later the National Institute for Architectural Education) was an art and architectural school at 304 East 44th Street in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, in New York City.Milton Hebald
New York City Statues. Accessed October 30, 2008. In

he taught at the Art Students League,

The Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

American Artists School The American Artists School was a progressive independent art school in New York City associated with socialism and the American Radical movement. The school was founded in April 1936 at 131 West 14th Street, upon the dissolution of the John Re ...

and also privately . He also taught at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Skowhegan School of Art, in Maine, and at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. He has been a guest lecturer and teacher at many other academic institutions. Hebald had his first one-man show at the age of 20, in New York City. He is currently exclusively represented by the Pushkin Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hebald was awarded the Prix de Rome Fellowship to the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

in 1955, 1956 and 1957. He stayed in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, living in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, with his wife, painter, Cecille Rosner Hebald, until 1970 when they moved to Bracciano, 25 miles outside Rome. In 2004, six years after his wife's death, he returned to the United States. Hebald lived in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

at the time of his death. near to his daughter, Margo Hebald (aka

Margo Hebald-Heymann Margo Hebald (Heymann) is an American architect. Formally based in Santa Monica, California, she specialized in commercial work, transportation, and healthcare facilities. Life and education She is the daughter of the late world renown sculptor, ...

), Architect, granddaughter Lara Hebald Embry and great-granddaughter Cecille Tuccillo all of whom live in California.

Work

Hebald created a series of pieces in 1960 featuring representations of the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

on the exterior of the

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

Worldport at

. A and windscreen in front of the terminal's entrance was adorned with bas relief representations of the 12 signs of the zodiac, visible from both outside and inside the terminal building. When it was created, it was the largest such work in the world. As part of renovations, the

removed the sculptures, which sit unused in a hangar at the airport. Hebald has created a pair of statues in front of

. The bronze unveiled in 1966 features

Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to se ...

, the protagonist of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's play '' The Tempest''. The piece was a gift of George T. Delacorte Jr., who also donated the Delacorte Theatre. A bronze of

and Miranda by Hebald was dedicated in Central Park in honor of

Joseph Papp Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created ...

, founder of the

New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park (or Free Shakespeare in the Park) is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions ar ...

. Hebald's sculpture of Romeo and Juliet was dedicated outside the Delacorte Theater in 1977. Hebald created a bust of operatic tenor

Richard Tucker Richard Tucker (August 28, 1913January 8, 1975) was an American operatic tenor and cantor. Long associated with the Metropolitan Opera, Tucker's career was primarily centered in the United States. Early life Tucker was born Rivn (Rubin) Ticke ...

for Richard Tucker Park, located in front of Lincoln Center, at the corner of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and Columbus Avenue at

66th Street 66th Street is a crosstown street in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan with portions on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side connected across Central Park via the 66th Street transverse. West 66th Street is notab ...

. Dedicated on April 20, 1980, the statue consists of a larger-than-life size bronze portrait on a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

pedestal.Richard Tucker

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

. Accessed August 17, 2008. The original 1978 proposal for a seven-foot statue of Tucker, depicted in the role of Des Grieux in the opera ''

Manon Lescaut ''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'' ( ) is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of ''Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité'' (''Memoirs and Adventures of a Ma ...

'' by

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...

, had been opposed by a member of

Manhattan Community Board 7 The Manhattan Community Board 7 is a New York City community board encompassing the neighborhoods of Manhattan Valley, Upper West Side, and Lincoln Square in the borough of Manhattan. It is delimited by Central Park West on the east, norther ...

, who felt that the piece should have been placed in the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...

Hall of Fame, and not on public property. In Zurich, Switzerland, Hebald was commissioned to do a life sized, full figure portrait of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

, for Joyce's tomb. He also made a bust of British novelist

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire ''A Clockwork ...

, to whom he once also sold a house near Rome. Burgess was quoted in 1971 as saying Hebald was "without doubt the most important living figure sculptor." In

, two of his bronze works were commissioned for the Adam's sculpture garden surrounding the Stuart Ketchum YMCA, the "Olympiad" in tribute to the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles, and "Handstand", depicting an acrobatic young boy which echos the "Y" logo. Handstand - Rome-1986-by-Milton-Hebald-at-YMCA-DTLA-2021-0114

Handstand - Rome-1986-by-Milton-Hebald-at-YMCA-DTLA-2021-0114

Later life

After living near his granddaughter and great-granddaughter in

, and continuing to sculpt in Terra Cotta and draw, Milton Hebald died on January 5, 2015, at the age of 97, in

West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most prominent gay villages ...

, California.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hebald, Milton 1917 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century male artists Art Students League of New York faculty Art Students League of New York alumni Cooper Union faculty University of Minnesota faculty 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century male artists American male sculptors Artists from New York City Sculptors Guild members Sculptors from New York (state) Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (New York City) alumni