Janice and Tuck Langland with Thelda Mathews, longtime chair of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival Visual Arts Committee, at the Oct. 16, 2011, dedication of Solitude in Beckwith Park.

Sculptor Tuck Langland, creator of four public sculptures in Dowagiac, receives an award next month from the National Sculpture Society (NSS) of New York City.

The Granger sculptor, an FNSS, or Fellow of the NSS, contributed Dance of Creation in Farr Park, Resting Dancer by City Hall, On With Life! for the emergency entrance to Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital and Solitude in Beckwith Park to Dowagiac’s visual arts landscape.

Langland donated Solitude in honor of Thelda Mathews, the woman most responsible for starting Dowagiac’s sculpture program — and the 2012 recipient of the Sculpture House Annual Award presented in Colorado.

NSS presents the Sculpture House Annual Award to Langland on Saturday, May 18, at its annual honors and awards honor held this year in Tampa, Fla., although his wife, Janice, will accept because he will be in Spain at bullfights.

“It took us completely by surprise,” Mrs. Langland, who just returned from Cuba, said Friday. “It’s what you spend your life doing.”

This award recognizes those who contribute to and encourage American sculpture.

“Langland creates, teaches and supports sculpture with great enthusiasm and pleasure,” according to the NSS.

In 1971, after teaching in England and at Murray State University in Kentucky, Langland began developing the sculpture department at Indiana University South Bend (IUSB), overseeing construction of a foundry.

In 1998, the IUSB Academic Senate awarded him the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, followed by the IU Foundation’s establishment of the Tuck Langland Art Scholarship.

In 2002, he received IUSB’s Lundquist Fellowship, an award given to a meritorious faculty member “who has exhibited excellence in teaching, scholarly or artistic achievement and diversified relevant service, preferably in community service throughout the Michiana region.”

Though he retired 10 years ago in 2003, Langland, professor emeritus, retains strong ties to the university.

In 2011, he created a bust of Lester M. Wolfson, IUSB’s chancellor emeritus, adding to the university’s collection of his work.

In his local community, Langland co-founded FireArts Inc., a non-profit dedicated to promoting three-dimensional arts of sculpture, pottery and jewelry. Langland regularly runs workshops, lectures and exhibits there.

Langland sculptures are at the British Museum, London, England; the University of Notre Dame; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.; Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids; and Brookgreen Gardens, Pawleys Island, S.C.

Langland travels extensively. In 1982, he studied art and architecture in India through a seven-week Fulbright.

In 1992, the U.S. Information Agency invited him to spend six weeks in Uganda, Africa, teaching bronze casting at Makerere University.

Throughout trips to France and England, Langland photographed churches, creating a collection of nearly 3,000 images available through the Index of Christian Art in Princeton.

In 2012, Langland created The Turban, a bust of a young girl, as NSS’ Patron Member gift of a miniature sculpture.

In addition to having served on NSS’ board as recording secretary (2000-2003), Langland sits on the editorial board of Sculpture Review magazine, contributing articles on subjects such as the nude and bronze casting.

He is also the author of “From Clay to Bronze: A Studio Guide to Figurative Sculpture” (Waston-Guptill Publications, 1999) and “Practical Sculpture” (Prentice Hall, 1988).

In 2002, Bruner Barrie, Sculpture House president, along with Jack North, president of Chavant, and Marc Fields, of The Compleat Sculptor, established The Sculpture House Annual Award.

In 1893, leading U.S. sculptors and architects founded the National Sculpture Society to “spread the knowledge of good sculpture” throughout the country.