Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 22, 1963

Query From a Sad Sculptor—
Why Did Public Go Straight?

THE WORLD, says Steven Rebeck, “has gone straight—line crazy.”

That the present emphasis on stark simplicity in design should inspire his anguish is completely understandable.  For Steven Rebeck, first sculptor graduate from the Cleveland Institute of Art, in 1912, made his living for years creating curlicues, cupids, gargoyles, rococo ornamentation and statuary.

“Now everybody wants straight lines, glass and aluminum,” he says.

Once a champion amateur wrestler, Rebeck, now a hearty 72, still is a sculptor at his Art and Pattern Products Co., 2426 St. Clair Avenue, but his medium is now plaster.  He makes plaster patterns or molds which will later be cast in bronze, brass or aluminum.  Mostly they are relief busts of Very Important People.  But there are hundreds of other plaster molds there, too, patterns for a wide range of subjects from bowling trophies to religious statuary.

There was a time when Rebeck was able to make full use of his talents as a sculptor.  There are examples of his work all over the country—a statue of Shakespeare in the Shakespearean Cultural Garden; a nine-foot bronze of Lincoln in Alliance, O.; a 12-foot aluminum Sphinx in St. Louis; scores of smaller figures in parks, gardens and public buildings.

“A far cry from the stuff I’m doing today.  But a man has to make a living.”