“Creating in Bronze is deliberate. One must know the difficult medium of bronze and mold it with your imagination.”

ABOUT

William Ludwig (1935-2016) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended art school in the early ’60s, a time when formal academic education was strongly emphasized. At the Hartford Art School, he studied under Wolfgang Behl, Rudolph Zallinger, Clifford Jones, and Paul Zimmerman and graduated Cum Laude in 1966 with a BFA. He went on to do graduate study at Tulane University under Jules Struppeck and Jessie Poesch and received an MFA in Sculpture with a minor in American Art History in 1968. Both schools emphasized cast bronze sculpture, and in the same year he received his MFA, Ludwig began a co-operative foundry with another sculptor. The first one-man show of his work at a professional gallery occurred the same year, and he cast his first life-sized figure in bronze the following year.

Ludwig had managed his own studio and foundry operation in the New Orleans area since 1972 but in 1985, he designed and built a 3,000 square foot art casting foundry and studio in Albany, Louisiana. Ludwig had cast all of his own sculptures as well as work for area sculptors and architects and had the longest continuously operating fine arts foundry in Louisiana.

Ludwig's most well-known sculptures include the Louisiana Vietnam War Veterans Memorial at the Superdome commissioned in February 1984 and dedicated on Veterans Day of that year which features three soldiers carrying a wounded comrade and a likeness of Ignatius Reilly, the principal character in "A Confederacy of Dunces," on Canal Street. The bronze, showing Reilly in a jacket, muffler, and his ever-present cap with ear flaps, stands outside the building that used to be the D.H. Holmes department store, now the Chateau Bourbon Hotel. The model Mr. Ludwig used was John "Spud" McConnell, a local actor and radio personality who had portrayed Reilly in staged readings of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Other New Orleans area pieces by Ludwig include Jesus Christ on a cypress cross in St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Slidell and the statues of Malcolm Woldenberg and his grandson, which are in Woldenberg Park. Public sculptures elsewhere include two citrus workers for Leu Gardens in Orlando, Florida, and depictions of a man and boy for Presbyterian Homes in Lake Forest, Ill.

His work was shown in 30 one-man shows and 26 two-person shows, and he taught at Tulane and Loyola universities.

Ludwig served as visiting artist at colleges and universities in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. He also served on the faculties at Loyola University and Tulane University in New Orleans. He had been involved in work/study programs with the College of Design at Louisiana and Loyola University of the South that permitted his assistants to obtain college credits.