Milton Horn was born in the Russian Ukraine in 1906 and came to the United States at the age of seven. Educated in Boston and New York, he has made his home in Chicago, since 1949. He is a founding member of the Sculptors Guild and his sculptures and drawing have been shown in museums throughout the country.

While living in New York City from 1927 to 1939, he executed a number of private and public commissions, one of the first being the carved ceiling of the Lentheric Salon in the Hotel Savoy Plaza. In 1939 he was appointed Carnegie artist-in-residence at Olivet College in Michigan, remaining there 10 years and serving as professor of art.

Over a period of more than five decades, Horn has created many important works for the US government and the city of Chicago, for universities, religious buildings, and research buildings of major corporations. He is considered one of the nation’s most versatile sculptors, working in metal and wood as well as stone.

In 1972, the National Sculpture Society awarded Horn, Cyrus Silling, and West Virginia University the Henry Hering Memorial Medal "for outstanding collaboration between architect, owner and sculptor in the distinguished use of sculpture." This was for a limba wood relief of angelic hosts for the All Faiths Chapel in the West Virginia University Hospital. It performs the dual function of a reredos or partition behind the altar, and a holy ark or repository for the Torah scrolls.

As in most sculpture, studies for the pylon panels were done in clay and plaster before the final medium was employed. The original, full-size plaster studies had been stored in the artist’s Chicago studio for nearly 25 years. At the suggestions of Dr. Paul Mesaros, a WVU alumnus-physician who visited the studio, Horn agreed to donate the models to West Virginia University to serve as a memorial to his wife, who died in 1975.

The gift was accepted immediately by Dr. Charles E. Andrews, WVU vice-president for health sciences, and an exhibit site in the lobby of the Charleston Division of the WVU Medical Center was selected. The dedication was held March 26, 1982, including installation of a memorial tablet created by Mr. Horn.