Spouse: June (Mayfield) Howard
Children: David Mayfield Howard
Robert Howard's neighbors on Hillview Road occasionally snickered about his big, brightly painted yard-art creations of steel and fiberglass.
But they could not call the several-foot-tall abstract sculptures junk - after all, Howard was a world-famous sculptor and respected university professor, and his creations are quite valuable.
Howard, 77, died Monday after an extended illness.
His wife, June, said several pieces still adorned their front yard Thursday.
More important, his art has graced galleries nationwide, and his pieces presently are on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Ackland Art Museum and the Duke University Museum of Art.
His work was exhibited at the 1965 New York World's Fair, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, to name a few.
Howard's outdoor pieces could be as much as 10 feet tall and 24 feet long. One of them is on the plaza of the federal building in Louisville, Ky. The model for that piece is displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"In my opinion, he is one of the most important sculptors to come out of North Carolina in the 20th century," said Lee Hansley, a downtown Raleigh gallery owner who showed Howard's "The Chapel Hill School" exhibit last fall.
A Sapulpa, Okla., native, Howard once said a high school art teacher's encouraging words deepened his interest. He studied at Phillips University in Enid, Okla.
In 1942, he entered the service and fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. When he returned home, he met June Mayfield, a high school friend, and the pair "saw each other and saw each other again," Mrs. Howard said Thursday. They married in 1948.
The next year, Howard got a master's degree in art from the University of Tulsa and spent a year studying with the French sculptor Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
He then took a job with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he spent 37 years teaching art disciplines from drawing to sculpture. He retired in 1988.
Hansley said Howard had a knack for turning out talented students.
"By being a professor at the university for over 30 years, he has trained many of the sculptors that we now know in the state," he said. "It's unusual to have someone who was a very, very good teacher and also had a very celebrated career."
Friend and colleague Marvin Saltzman, recently retired from UNC-CH, recalled that before he knew Howard, his wife admired the artist's work at the Los Angeles museum's "Sculpture of the Sixties" exhibit, billed as the decade's most prestigious showing.
"Even in an exhibition of the very best, Robert's work stood out," he said.
There will not be a traditional funeral service, Mrs. Howard said. A "celebration of life" observance will be held later.
He is survived by his wife and a son, David, of the home.
Children: David Mayfield Howard
Robert Howard's neighbors on Hillview Road occasionally snickered about his big, brightly painted yard-art creations of steel and fiberglass.
But they could not call the several-foot-tall abstract sculptures junk - after all, Howard was a world-famous sculptor and respected university professor, and his creations are quite valuable.
Howard, 77, died Monday after an extended illness.
His wife, June, said several pieces still adorned their front yard Thursday.
More important, his art has graced galleries nationwide, and his pieces presently are on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Ackland Art Museum and the Duke University Museum of Art.
His work was exhibited at the 1965 New York World's Fair, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, to name a few.
Howard's outdoor pieces could be as much as 10 feet tall and 24 feet long. One of them is on the plaza of the federal building in Louisville, Ky. The model for that piece is displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"In my opinion, he is one of the most important sculptors to come out of North Carolina in the 20th century," said Lee Hansley, a downtown Raleigh gallery owner who showed Howard's "The Chapel Hill School" exhibit last fall.
A Sapulpa, Okla., native, Howard once said a high school art teacher's encouraging words deepened his interest. He studied at Phillips University in Enid, Okla.
In 1942, he entered the service and fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. When he returned home, he met June Mayfield, a high school friend, and the pair "saw each other and saw each other again," Mrs. Howard said Thursday. They married in 1948.
The next year, Howard got a master's degree in art from the University of Tulsa and spent a year studying with the French sculptor Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
He then took a job with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he spent 37 years teaching art disciplines from drawing to sculpture. He retired in 1988.
Hansley said Howard had a knack for turning out talented students.
"By being a professor at the university for over 30 years, he has trained many of the sculptors that we now know in the state," he said. "It's unusual to have someone who was a very, very good teacher and also had a very celebrated career."
Friend and colleague Marvin Saltzman, recently retired from UNC-CH, recalled that before he knew Howard, his wife admired the artist's work at the Los Angeles museum's "Sculpture of the Sixties" exhibit, billed as the decade's most prestigious showing.
"Even in an exhibition of the very best, Robert's work stood out," he said.
There will not be a traditional funeral service, Mrs. Howard said. A "celebration of life" observance will be held later.
He is survived by his wife and a son, David, of the home.
Spouse: June (Mayfield) Howard
Children: David Mayfield Howard
Robert Howard's neighbors on Hillview Road occasionally snickered about his big, brightly painted yard-art creations of steel and fiberglass.
But they could not call the several-foot-tall abstract sculptures junk - after all, Howard was a world-famous sculptor and respected university professor, and his creations are quite valuable.
Howard, 77, died Monday after an extended illness.
His wife, June, said several pieces still adorned their front yard Thursday.
More important, his art has graced galleries nationwide, and his pieces presently are on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Ackland Art Museum and the Duke University Museum of Art.
His work was exhibited at the 1965 New York World's Fair, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, to name a few.
Howard's outdoor pieces could be as much as 10 feet tall and 24 feet long. One of them is on the plaza of the federal building in Louisville, Ky. The model for that piece is displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"In my opinion, he is one of the most important sculptors to come out of North Carolina in the 20th century," said Lee Hansley, a downtown Raleigh gallery owner who showed Howard's "The Chapel Hill School" exhibit last fall.
A Sapulpa, Okla., native, Howard once said a high school art teacher's encouraging words deepened his interest. He studied at Phillips University in Enid, Okla.
In 1942, he entered the service and fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. When he returned home, he met June Mayfield, a high school friend, and the pair "saw each other and saw each other again," Mrs. Howard said Thursday. They married in 1948.
The next year, Howard got a master's degree in art from the University of Tulsa and spent a year studying with the French sculptor Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
He then took a job with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he spent 37 years teaching art disciplines from drawing to sculpture. He retired in 1988.
Hansley said Howard had a knack for turning out talented students.
"By being a professor at the university for over 30 years, he has trained many of the sculptors that we now know in the state," he said. "It's unusual to have someone who was a very, very good teacher and also had a very celebrated career."
Friend and colleague Marvin Saltzman, recently retired from UNC-CH, recalled that before he knew Howard, his wife admired the artist's work at the Los Angeles museum's "Sculpture of the Sixties" exhibit, billed as the decade's most prestigious showing.
"Even in an exhibition of the very best, Robert's work stood out," he said.
There will not be a traditional funeral service, Mrs. Howard said. A "celebration of life" observance will be held later.
He is survived by his wife and a son, David, of the home.
Children: David Mayfield Howard
Robert Howard's neighbors on Hillview Road occasionally snickered about his big, brightly painted yard-art creations of steel and fiberglass.
But they could not call the several-foot-tall abstract sculptures junk - after all, Howard was a world-famous sculptor and respected university professor, and his creations are quite valuable.
Howard, 77, died Monday after an extended illness.
His wife, June, said several pieces still adorned their front yard Thursday.
More important, his art has graced galleries nationwide, and his pieces presently are on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Ackland Art Museum and the Duke University Museum of Art.
His work was exhibited at the 1965 New York World's Fair, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, to name a few.
Howard's outdoor pieces could be as much as 10 feet tall and 24 feet long. One of them is on the plaza of the federal building in Louisville, Ky. The model for that piece is displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"In my opinion, he is one of the most important sculptors to come out of North Carolina in the 20th century," said Lee Hansley, a downtown Raleigh gallery owner who showed Howard's "The Chapel Hill School" exhibit last fall.
A Sapulpa, Okla., native, Howard once said a high school art teacher's encouraging words deepened his interest. He studied at Phillips University in Enid, Okla.
In 1942, he entered the service and fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. When he returned home, he met June Mayfield, a high school friend, and the pair "saw each other and saw each other again," Mrs. Howard said Thursday. They married in 1948.
The next year, Howard got a master's degree in art from the University of Tulsa and spent a year studying with the French sculptor Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
He then took a job with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he spent 37 years teaching art disciplines from drawing to sculpture. He retired in 1988.
Hansley said Howard had a knack for turning out talented students.
"By being a professor at the university for over 30 years, he has trained many of the sculptors that we now know in the state," he said. "It's unusual to have someone who was a very, very good teacher and also had a very celebrated career."
Friend and colleague Marvin Saltzman, recently retired from UNC-CH, recalled that before he knew Howard, his wife admired the artist's work at the Los Angeles museum's "Sculpture of the Sixties" exhibit, billed as the decade's most prestigious showing.
"Even in an exhibition of the very best, Robert's work stood out," he said.
There will not be a traditional funeral service, Mrs. Howard said. A "celebration of life" observance will be held later.
He is survived by his wife and a son, David, of the home.
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