Seward Johnson's Lifelike Sculptures Returning to Downtown New Brunswick

NEW BRUNSWICK – A smiling vendor serving up a hot dog with mustard will be stationed near Destination Dogs on Paterson Street.

A trumpet player, surely hitting the high notes, will be hanging out outside Tavern on George, the host venue for the New Brunswick Jazz Project.

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And then there’s the girl waving as if she’s excitedly summoning her friends to join her at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center.

These and three more of artist Seward Johnson’s true-to-life sculptures will be strategically placed around City Center New Brunswick for the third year.

The sculptures, which will be on loan from the Seward Johnson Atelier, will be unveiled Wednesday, May 1.

This will be the third year that the city has prominently displayed a selection of Johnson’s sculptures.

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“It’s been a huge hit and it’s so thrilling seeing people stopping and taking selfies or having someone take their picture constantly with these sculptures,” said Michael Tublin, a member of City Market New Brunswick who was the driving force behind this year’s installation. “You see little kids and they’re pointing up at the statues. And at some points, people think they’re real. If you’re looking from a distance, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a real person.’”

In addition to the other three, “Autin’s Advanced Artistic Awakening” will be placed near the flagpole outside the Middlesex County Courthouse near the corner of Bayard Street and Elm Row, “Captured” will be positioned outside George Street Camera and “Between Classes” will be set up outside Harvest Moon Brewery & Café at 392 George St.

John Seward Johnson II was born in New Brunswick in 1930, the grandson of Johnson & Johnson co-founder Robert Wood Johnson I.

He took inspiration from the 19th century Impressionist masters and created lifelike sculptures that often seamlessly blend into parks, playgrounds and other public spaces – even busy city sidewalks.

More than 450 of Johnson’s life-size cast bronze figures have been featured in private collections and museums in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, as well as prominent places in the public realm such as Times Square and Rockefeller Center in New York City, Pacific Place of Hong Kong, Les Halles in Paris, and Via Condotti in Rome, according to the Seward Johnson Atelier website.

Johnson, who died in 2020, was the founder of Grounds for Sculpture, a 42-acre sculpture park and museum in Hamilton Township. It is home to many of his works that range from sculptures of children at play to an old man lying on the grass.

They all command double-takes, but none more so than “Double Check.” The sculpture of a businessman rifling through his brief case was installed at Liberty Park, not far from the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Firefighters, mistaking the sculpture for a real man, rushed to save him in the wake of the day’s chaos.

The sculptures will be on display in New Brunswick from the Seward Johnson Atelier through Oct. 15.

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