A "Bildhauer" is a sculptor. I am not familiaar with the other term but my dictionaey leads me to believe that it can mean a "Sculptor" but other things too, like maybe, even, a plastic curgeon which actually makes the term now begin to sound vaguely familiar to me. A "Plastiker" apparently also refers to an artist who works in a platic medium or with other synthetic materials potentially.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2002-04-10 21:36:16 (GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

sorry - familiar, dictionary, surgeon, plastic

Bert De Keyser
plastic artist|sculptor|graphic artist

see website below:

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2002-04-10 21:53:33 (GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I suppose that every plastic artist is also a sculptor, with sculptor being the classification for the genre and a plastic artist being one of it\'s sub-categories.

In English usage, sculptor (sculptress) applies to both Bildhauer[in] and Plastiker[in]
sculptor: 1. a person who practicesthe art of sculpture
sculpture: 1. the art of carving, modeling, welding or otherwise producing figurative or abstracxt works of art in three dimensions, as in relief,m inaglio or in the round. 2. such works of art collectively 3. an individual piece of such work. -- 4. (verb)
Also cf: sculptress
(Webster's Encylopedic unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, ISBN 0 517 15026 3)

HTH Tom