David Kresz Rubins

(Sept. 5, 1902-Mar. 6, 1985). A native of Minneapolis, David Kresz Rubins studied at Dartmouth, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the Académie Julian.

He won the Paris prize in 1924 and the Prix de Rome in 1928. Returning to New York, he served for seven years as an assistant in the studio of James Earle Fraser, famed for his equestrian sculptures and the design for the buffalo nickel. He became a member of the John Reed Club, an association of political activists that included left-wing Democrats. However, his few lithographs and drawings of social activism are uncharacteristic of his work, which is marked by a quiet introspection and compassion.

Rubins joined the faculty of the Herron School Of Art in 1935, teaching sculpture, drawing, art history, and anatomy during his 35-year tenure. He published The Human Figure: An Anatomy For Artists in 1953. He was awarded a Grant in Sculpture from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954 and was made a Sagamore of the Wabash by Governor Matthew Welsh in 1964. Outside the city, he exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and in New York at the National Academy of Design, Architectural League, and American Sculpture Today (an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum) (1951).

His method of teaching reflected the shop system. His students could observe his work on commissioned pieces as well as those entered in competition. His best-known public sculptures are the statue of a young Lincoln, State Office Building, Indianapolis (1963), and the cherub (1947) that adorned the L. S. Ayres And Company clock each Christmas season.

Other major works of his include the figure on the steps of the National Archives Building, Washington, D.C. (1933); spandrels and keystones over truck entrances, Birch Bayh Federal Building, Indianapolis (1936); Lilly Monument, Crown Hill Cemetery, (1961); commemorative plaques in Riley Children’s Hospital; and Stumbling Man, Newfields grounds (1962).

He also created busts of Governor Henry Schricker, State House (1964); Frederick M. Ayres, formerly at the downtown L. S. Ayres store; Evans Woollen Sr., Newsfields (1944); Dr. John D. Van Nuys, Riley Hospital; Dr. Albert G. Han, Evansville; and William Henry Harrison, Park Tudor School. Rubins’ work is in Newsfields, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Herron School of Art (IUPUI), National Collection of Fine Arts at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and private collections.

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