Louis Nelson, an industrial designer who conceived a central element of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, drawing on his experiences as a peacetime Army officer and art student, when he encountered veterans of the Korean conflict, died on Dec. 4 in Manhattan. He was 88.
His death, at Mount Sinai Hospital, was caused by cancer discovered when he was hospitalized after a fall at his home several weeks ago, said his wife, the singer Judy Collins.
In a career of more than 50 years, Mr. Nelson was best known for his graphic design of the 164-foot mural wall at the Korean War Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1995. The wall is a long expanse of gray granite with etched portraits of 2,400 military personnel who supported the combat troops in the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953.
The highly polished surface reflects the 19 statues of poncho-clad soldiers sculpted by Frank Gaylord facing the wall. Visitors passing between the wall and the nearly 8-foot-tall statues are led to a reflecting pool.
“The wall really holds it all together,” said Bernard S. Champoux, a vice-chair of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation and a retired general who commanded the U.S. Eighth Army in South Korea in peacetime. The mural “cleverly includes everybody,” he said, highlighting support personnel from different service branches.
In designing the mural for what is sometimes called “the forgotten war,” Mr. Nelson studied archival photos of Korean veterans who served “and silently came home,” he wrote in a memoir, “Mosaic: War Monument Mystery” (2021).
“Living with faces of those who served, I began to see a power in their gazes, a story told in their eyes,” he wrote.
He also described a key moment in the design process when Mr. Gaylord mocked up the statues of combat troops. The statues were nearly canceled by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which did not want rifles openly shown on the National Mall.
It was Mr. Nelson’s idea, he wrote, to have the sculpted-steel soldiers wear ponchos to cover their weapons. The billowy shrouds give the troops a ghostly appearance and recall the extreme weather they faced in Korea. The commission greenlighted the design.
Mr. Nelson’s other design work ranged from signage to consumer product packaging to a fast-food restaurant, according to his website.
Louis Nelson was born on Oct. 8, 1936, in New York and raised in Astoria, Queens, the elder of two children of Louis Nelson, a self-taught electrical engineer, and Ingrid (Gjersdal) Nelson. The family was the only one of Norwegian heritage in a neighborhood of Irish Americans and Italian Americans.
In addition to Ms. Collins, Mr. Nelson is survived by his sister, Dorothy Nelson.
In 1954, he graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and entered Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the famous design school. With the draft still active, he signed up for Reserve Officers Training Corps so that his education would not be interrupted. When he received his Bachelor of Industrial Design degree in 1958, he entered the Army as a second lieutenant. He became a helicopter pilot with the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. He returned to Pratt to earn a Master of Industrial Design in 1964.
Mr. Nelson had been married and divorced twice before meeting Ms. Collins in 1978 at a fund-raiser for the equal rights amendment at the Ginger Man restaurant in New York.
“She called me the next few days every day,” he recalled in a Vows column in The Times. “I was flabbergasted that she would be interested in me. She was a star. I owned all of her records.”
Ms. Collins, in an interview, said that she had not been looking for a new relationship but was swept up by Mr. Nelson. “He was remarkable. Handsome. A wonderful mind. He was a person of intelligence and care and understanding, beautifully read.”
“I spend half my time on the road and half my time making plans to have dinner: that was our life,” she added.
They shared her Upper West Side apartment and his house in Connecticut but only decided to marry in 1996, after Mr. Nelson had a near-death experience. Still, they decided to live separate if intertwined lives.
“We really give each other space,” Ms. Collins told The New York Times in a 2010 article about the longevity of their relationship. “I’m interested in what he’s doing, he’s interested in what I’m doing, but there is no tethering. I’m free to travel the world.”
Mr. Nelson said that Ms. Collins — who had been through a lot in life, including recovery from alcoholism and the self-inflicted death of her only child — had found her way to am optimistic attitude that rubbed off on him.
“I used to walk through life as a designer being very critical of things around me,” he said. “Various buildings weren’t designed as well as they should be. All the cars are looking the same. Nothing is unique. Now, I walk through life, and I don’t really see the things that could be better or improved. I’ve turned into a much more positive person.”
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