Milton
Horn
1906-1995
Milton Horn was born in Russia in 1906, came to United States in 1913, and began to study art in 1918. He did not graduate high school, but took miscellaneous art classes and soon worked in the Boston studio of H.H.Kitson. His father, Pinchas, was evidently active in traditional Jewish life and worked as a photographer. (his shot of Zorach’s “Dancer” is often reproduced). He began to build a career in architectural sculpture in the New York area, and worked cataloging Egyptian antiquities at the Brooklyn museum, developing contacts within the antiquities market that would help him build his own, extensive collection of ancient, Medieval, and Asian sculpture. (note: this collection was gradually sold off to support him in his old age – but it had to be seen to be believed, and he considered it the store of knowledge from which he learned) He was active in the Sculptor’s Guild and shared the enthusiasm in that period for direct carving and the control of form by planes. In 1939 he began his teaching career at Olivet College , a small, ‘great books’, liberal arts school in Michigan. In 1949 he quit teaching, moved to Chicago, and began to develop his Judaic themes – beginning with his ‘Job’ which was exhibited in the 1951 national sculpture exhibit held by the Metropolitan museum. Throughout his career, he collaborated with Estelle Oxenhorn, his wife, muse, critic, business manager, and incredible photographer. (all of the pictures – that is, all of the good pictures - are her work ) He innovated with the first (and probably the last) figurative representions of the divine in Jewish temples. (at least they were the first since the Romans sacked the second temple in Jerusalem and carried off the cherubim over the ark)He also completed several monumental relief sculptures for the City of Chicago, and the University of West Virginia. His career ended in 1975 with the death of Estelle – and he would not complete another project other than the erotic “God and Israel” that was dedicated to her memory. He died in 1995.
(note: a thorough and informative catalog of his life and work is available from the Spertus College of Judaica, 618 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago 60605)
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