Curt Siegel (sculptor)

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Curt Siegel (born December 19, 1881 in Saint Petersburg , † January 27, 1950 in Dresden ) was a German sculptor .

Life

Curt Siegel was born in Saint Petersburg to German parents, the engineer Curt Siegel and Jenny geb. Hueck (1860-1940). After graduating from school, Curt Siegel went to the field artillery, after which he worked as a volunteer in a machine factory. He first studied at the Städel Institute in Frankfurt am Main with Ernst Rittweger. From 1902 to 1904 he completed an apprenticeship in the drawing class of the Stuttgart Academy with Robert Poetzelberger .

In 1904 Siegel moved to Paris, but did not find an academy that seemed suitable to him. At the Brussels Academy he learned sculpture from the sculptor Julien Dillens , who died after three months. In the winter of 1907/08, Siegel traveled through Italy for six months. After his return he worked for years in Brussels on a larger than life marble group “Cloe and Daphne”, which later came to Petersburg.

In 1909 Siegel married the teacher Marguerite Jäger. He had two children with her, their son Curt Siegel, born in 1911, and their daughter Rut , who was born in 1919. Siegel moved with his family to Loschwitz near Dresden in 1912 , where he fulfilled his lifelong dream and built a studio and residential building based on his own designs. In the following years he mainly created portrait busts of various Dresden residents.

In the First World War , Siegel was drafted right at the beginning and was there as a gunner, driver, operator and interpreter until the end of the war. After the war, the family was financially bad. It was only after receiving an order for a larger than life skier in plaster of paris for a sports and fashion store in downtown Dresden that Siegel was able to work again as an artist. Since marble stone was hard to come by, Siegel worked with wood in the following years. He made numerous portrait busts and reliefs from hardwood, but continued to work alternately in marble and plaster.

Still under the impression of World War I, he created war memorials, for example for the city of Riesa and the Mittweida technical center .

In World War II seal was used as an interpreter. He returned from the war with mental and physical ailments. In 1945 he had to give up his studio because he could no longer work standing up due to a hip problem. Subsequently, he devoted himself mainly to drawings and reliefs, which he made from photographs.

Siegel died in Dresden in 1950 and found his final resting place in the Loschwitz cemetery . The grave site was closed in 1980.

plant

His first work in Loschwitz was the female sandstone figure Flora , which he set up as a welcome figure in front of the entrance to the house. Several portrait busts of various Dresden citizens followed. After the First World War, he was able to gain a foothold again in his profession thanks to a commissioned work, a larger-than-life skier for the entrance hall of a sports and fashion store. Since marble was not available, Curt Siegel used wood as a material for the first time. Since he liked the polished surface with the grain and the highlights very much, numerous relief heads and portrait busts made of this material followed. He only worked according to a model and only with people and horses that he had carefully studied; therefore, some sculptures with people and animals were created in collaboration with the animal sculptor Ernst Wossidlo .

Many of Siegel's works of art are in private hands and are not open to the public. Only a few are in possession of museums, such as the ivory sculpture of a woman arching a bow from 1911 in the Albertinum in Dresden .

  • Portrait bust of the painter Hans-Georg Walther, plaster, 1923.
  • Cenotaph for the students and teachers of the Mittweida technical center who died in the First World War, 1927
  • Sculpture on the Loschwitz grave of the Siegel couple, around 1940.
  • Portrait bust of the court jester Fröhlich , mahogany.

Fonts

  • Curt Siegel and his work. Niemeyer, Halle (Saale) 1924.
  • with Friedrich Meyner: artist anatomy . Seemann, Leipzig 1958.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dresden, Germany, Deaths, 1876-1952 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Siegel, Curt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1950
Place of death Dresden