Albert Wein Sculptures: Garden of Memories

Known throughout history as the People of the Book, Jews attach great mystical significance to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Towering above a fountain in the Court of Faith in the Garden of Memories is an Albert Wein sculpture that gives kinetic perspective to a tower of Hebrew letters. Completed in 1968, the five welded bronze letters spell the Hebrew word emunah, or faith in English.

Others of Wein’s bronze sculptures can be seen above the Goetz sarcophagus and the Cummins sarcophagus in the Garden of Memories. Also of note are the bronze door handles on the Administration Building in the form of the Hebrew letter shin, which represents the name of God.

Albert Wein (1915 – 1991) once said the main thrust of his work was “to modernize and stylize the classical tradition.” Over his career, he completed commissions for the Brookgreen Gardens, the world’s largest outdoor sculpture garden; the Steuben Glass Co., the Bronx Zoo and the Libby Dam bas-relief project.

He has been recognized with the coveted Prix de Rome, which has been likened to the Nobel Prize in arts; the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation grant and many others. In 1979, he was elected a full Academician of the National Academy of Design.