August Wilhelm Goebel

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"Gänsebrünnchen" by August Wilhelm Goebel in the Düsseldorf North Park settlement

August Wilhelm Goebel (born May 11, 1883 in Kloppenheim , † June 2, 1971 in Haan) was a German sculptor who worked primarily in Düsseldorf.

life and work

August Wilhelm Goebel was the son of a wood sculptor , in whose workshop he initially received an apprenticeship, after which he was a student of Karl Janssen's sculpting class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . He attended the Frankfurt / Main School of Applied Arts and learned from Friedrich Christoph Hausmann , then studied at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Munich Academy of Fine Arts .

As early as 1925 Goebel appeared with two sculptures in line with the National Socialist worldview . Thanks to his "frank commitment to Adolf Hitler's political ideas ", he was initially excluded from public contracts. From 1928 he was a member of the “ Stahlhelm ” (until 1933, as chairman of the Reich Association of Fine Artists in Germany, he headed its art exhibitions) and joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party early on . He brought “his small fortune ” into the party during the “ fighting time ”. In 1933 he joined the SA and in 1941 became Oberscharführer .

Among other things, Goebel worked with the Düsseldorf bronze foundry . His early works include the medal for services to the district of Wiesbaden from 1916 and the larger-than-life organ figures Music for the Evangelical Church of Thanksgiving in Düsseldorf-Benrath , a copy of which Hitler bought for the Reich Chancellery.

At the Great Berlin Art Exhibition of 1924 Goebel exhibited bronze personifications with the titles Die Arbeit and Die Zeit . The artist created the relief and the medal Der Tanz for the city of Düsseldorf . He also produced the medal exhibition for health care in Düsseldorf (1926) and the plaque for sporting activities at the Great Exhibition Düsseldorf 1926 for health care, social care and physical exercise ( GeSoLei ) from May 8 to October 15, 1926 in Düsseldorf. In 1928 he erected the portal figures of the Neuwied tax office. The building of the artists' association Malkasten , in which he erected an ensemble of four groups of four ( allegories of the fine arts ), was destroyed in the Second World War.

The architect Heinz Thoma designed and built an artist's house for Goebel in Ernst-Schwarz-Strasse, today Franz-Juergens-Strasse 3, for the Reich Exhibition of Creative People in what was then known as the “Schlageterstadt” . This is still part of the "artist's settlement" in Golzheim and is a listed building.

Between 1938 and 1942, Hitler and Hermann Göring bought a large part of the exhibited works as part of the Great German Art Exhibition to support the artists, including some by Goebel. The head of the Prussian Ministry of Culture, Bernhard Rust , had allegedly intended Goebels to be appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy before the start of the Second World War, but this failed due to the lack of vacancies. The efforts of the Chief of Staff of the SA Viktor Lutze to obtain a professorship for Goebel failed again in 1941, despite many early designations.Goebel's identification with National Socialism was reflected in his work titles, for example at the Great German Art Exhibition , where in 1941 he created the marble sculpture Norne ( Acquisition by the Kunstmuseum Hagen ) and showed his work ready to sacrifice in 1942 .

Goebel's figures and reliefs in a neoclassical, realistic style were mainly made of bronze and marble, more rarely also made of wood and primarily represented replicas of the female body. His subject primarily includes numerous allegories and personifications , such as the allegory of the muses (bronze ) and Fortuna (bronze, around 1922), thoughtful mythological female figures such as the crouching fountain nymph with a shell in her hand (bronze, gold patinated), profane nudes based on the Aryan race ideal with contemporary female hairdos such as the standing female nude made of marble and double figures in the group of figures (Marble, 1924). His thematic repertoir also includes modeled groups of children and animals such as Der Entenjunge (bronze), but more rarely male figures, who mostly show themselves in the pose of human work, such as the plaster workers at the exhibition in praise of work in 1936 and the bronze Hüttenmann at the Great German Art exhibition 1941. He designed decorative ceramic sculptures Nymph, female nude, picking flowers (manufactured by the Karl Ens porcelain factory in Volkstedt (Rudolstadt) ), Europe on the bull and standing lion , both from the period between 1910 and 1920.

Goebel made the Hassel's war memorial "The fallen comrades 1914-1918", the pioneer memorial at the water station in Mülheim an der Ruhr , the goose fountain made of shell limestone in the North Park in Düsseldorf at the Reichsheimstätten model settlement, the so-called Wilhelm Gustloff settlement , and the duck fountain ( Bronze, basalt lava base, concrete, mosaic stones) around 1964 at the St. Michael elementary school in Düsseldorf's Kempgensweg. Goebels created portrait busts (for example P. TH. Thyssen, W. Henkel, Graf von Schmettow and Heinrich Hagenbeck ) and reliefs made of marble like the Sinnende .

Other exhibitions sent by Goebel were the Great Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1925 , the Great Christmas Sales Exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1942, the Winter Exhibition of Düsseldorf Artists in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1942 (with the sculpture Norne ), in 1944 the Spring Exhibition of Düsseldorf Artists , in 1945 the exhibition Künstlerverein Malkasten , between 1938 and 1942 with a total of 12 works the Great German Art Exhibitions in the House of German Art and in 1943 the exhibition of Düsseldorf Artists in Florence in the Palazzo Strozzi .

Goebel worked in Düsseldorf until he moved to Neuwied in 1962 . Until at least 1970 he was a member of the artists' association Malkasten . The exact date of his death is not known; 1970 is occasionally mentioned as the year of death.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hitler acquired, among other things, the Gudrun file .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Stefanie Schäfers: GOEBEL, August Wilhelm . In: From the Werkbund to the four-year plan. The exhibition Schaffendes Volk, Düsseldorf 1937 . ISBN 3-77003-045-1 . Directory of persons.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Günter Meißner : General artist lexicon. The visual artists of all times and peoples . Entry Goebel, August Wilhelm. . KG Saur Verlag, Walter de Gruyter (Ed.), 1992. ISBN 3-59822-740-X . P. 47.
  3. ↑ Otto Thomae: The Propaganda Machine. Fine arts and public relations in the Third Reich. Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1978. p. 259
  4. ↑ Porcelain lion figure. ( Memento from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Bares für Rares , objects from October 26, 2016.
  5. ↑ Claudia Jansen, cultural office of the state capital Düsseldorf: Hassels war memorial . In: German Digital Library
  6. ^ Postcard pioneer monument at the water station. In: arkivi-bildagentur.de
  7. ^ Stefanie Schäfers: Removal of the sculptures. In: From the Werkbund to the four-year plan. The exhibition Schaffendes Volk, Düsseldorf 1937 . ISBN 3-77003-045-1 .
  8. ↑ Duck Well. State capital Düsseldorf. The Lord Mayor.
  9. ↑ Google search August + Wilhelm + Goebel + 1970.
personal data
SURNAME Goebel, August Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goebel, AW (signature)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden-Kloppenheim
DATE OF DEATH around 1970
Place of death unsure: Neuwied