This year, the National Sculpture Society awarded the Herbert Adams Memorial Award to Sabin Howard.

The Herbert Adams Memorial Award is presented as the occasion arises for service to American Sculpture or to a sculptor for outstanding achievement. The board agreed unanimously that Howard’s recently completed monument A Soldier’s Journey was an outstanding achievement.

A Soldier’s Journey, which was dedicated in our nation’s capital last year, is a project of extraordinary scale and scope that carries on the timeless legacy of figurative sculpture in public art. The work is composed of thirty-eight separate figures, spanning 58 feet of wall. It depicts war through the experience of one American soldier, beginning as he leaves his family and young daughter and ending with his return.

Sabin sought out Veterans, who modelled for him over several years as he was creating the figures for the monument. “I got really clear about needing military men because the faces in the sculpture were so character-driven,” he says. “Having a veteran model for me took everything to a whole new level because of the emotional resonance.” (Winter 2024 – Sculpture Quarterly).

The award was presented on June 6, 2025 at the Honors and Awards Luncheon, part of the Sculpture Celebration events held in New York City. The award is an engraved medal and a hand-lettered certificate. Past Herbert Adams Memorial Award recipients include Lee Lawrie (1954), Bruno Lucchesi (1996), Elisabeth Gordon Chandler (1997), Raymond D. Nasher (2004) and Nina Akamu (2009).