Tuck Langland: the sculptor of the campus and the river city

at Indiana University South Bend 1971 – 2003

Tuck Langland: the sculptor who gave Indiana University South Bend its visual identity and downtown South Bend one of its landmarks. He studied at the University of Minnesota, taught in England and at Murray State University in Kentucky, and came to IU South Bend in 1971 expressly to develop its sculpture department, building the foundry that still serves it. He retired in 2003 as professor emeritus of sculpture, a fellow of the National Sculpture Society — whose board he sat on and whose Sculpture Review editorial board he chaired — and a member of the National Academy. His teaching brought the university's sculpture students national awards, and he holds the Eldon Lundquist Fellowship among his honors. An early-1980s sojourn in India, where he studied bronze casting and Hindu temple sculpture, produced the large Venus Natarani.

The works on this ground: A line of boulders, designed by Langland to symbolize the creation and attainment of knowledge, runs across the pedestrian mall from the Franklin D. Schurz Library — the city carries no Schurz park; the Schurz name on this ground is the library's, for the Tribune's publisher — to the Administration Building. His Crossroads rises from the fountain at the center of the quad; his ten-foot Memory stands on the campus mall; Ring Ribbons at Greenlawn Hall and the five-foot Unplayed Cello at the Schurz Library are his; a bronze relief, Adagio with Landscape, hangs in the auditorium lobby, and his portrait relief of Darwin and Dorothy Wiekamp in Wiekamp Hall. In 2011 the university unveiled his bust of Lester M. Wolfson, chancellor emeritus. Downtown, his eleven-foot bronze Violin Woman stands at the Morris Performing Arts Center. His collected life's work — fifty-seven sculptures and five drawings spanning sixty years, curated over nine years by the Midwest Museum of American Art's director Brian Byrn — is preserved by that museum in Elkhart, a separate city, where the Tuck Langland Collection hangs as his biography in sculpture, his own portrait among them painted by Harold Zisla.

Sources:

1. National Sculpture Society, "Tuck Langland" (nationalsculpture.org) — the 1971 arrival to develop the sculpture department and its foundry, the 2003 retirement, the fellowship and National Academy membership, and the India sojourn and Venus Natarani.
2. Indiana University South Bend, self-guided art tour and campus news (iusb.edu) — the boulder line from the Schurz Library, Crossroads, Memory, Ring Ribbons, Unplayed Cello, Adagio with Landscape, the Wiekamp relief, the 2011 Wolfson bust, and the Morris Violin Woman.
3. Midwest Museum of American Art, the Tuck Langland Collection — the fifty-seven sculptures and five drawings, the nine-year curation by Brian Byrn, and the Zisla portraits of Langland and his wife.