Elfriede Luise Vogel

Elfriede Luise Vogel (née Hanweg; born April 15, 1922 in Marburg / Lahn ) is a German sculptor and  poet of the 20th and 21st centuries. With her sculptural work she is one of the sculptors of the representational art movement. As an author and contemporary witness of a turbulent century, her poetry contains symbolic references to current events. The art historian Uwe Moeller compared Elfriede L. Vogel with Käthe Kollwitz and described her as "an artist of silence".

Life

Elfriede L. Vogel was exposed to the suffering and misery of the Second World War and its aftermath at a young age . In spite of everything, she had not lost hope and confidence, which should also be reflected in her artistic work. In 1948, at the age of 26, she married Werner Vogel, a German war veteran who died in 2000. The couple had five children together, whose mother did not neglect the artistic path despite the multiple stresses in the house.

In the 1960s, Vogel trained with two academically trained sculptors. She became familiar with the material processing of clay and plaster , various casting techniques and the classic proportions of a plastic form. At the same time she learned the skill of working stone and marble. 

The sculptress

Like Käthe Kollwitz, Elfriede Vogel also devotes herself to social issues, the family and children in her world of forms. She designs people from life and is also dedicated to the small children, after whom she modeled sculptures. She is also open to cheerful, popular subjects. Overall, her work is characterized by a special focus on naturalistic portraits and portrayals of people. Her great sculptors from the 1920s and 1930s were role models from an early age: Georg Kolbe , Fritz Klimsch and Joseph Thorak. Then came Arno Breker , whom she had known personally since the 1970s. She also maintained friendly, collegial contacts with the sculptor Kurt Arentz . 

The poet  

"Verseschmieden already in childhood" was Elfriede L. Vogel's own statement. There were also “rhyming diary sheets” as a “playground for thoughts, imagination and feeling for language”. She works on her themes of friendship, love and transience in poetry. This is how poems  like “The Work”, “Young Parents”, “The Wedding Candlestick”, “Happiness”, “The Image” and “Hymn to the Day” were created, to name just a few. 

Exhibitions and readings

For years, Vogel's works have been exhibited in galleries and public institutions. Often this was accompanied by a reading of her poems and prose texts . There have been repeated exhibitions of her works in European countries, especially in Germany, Holland and Austria.

The Museum Europäische Kunst NRW honored the artist with a retrospective in 2010. In 2009 there was already a solo exhibition in the Marco Gallery in the federal city of Bonn . In 2011, works by Vogel were shown in the Rittersaal Gallery at Nörvenich Castle . Sculptures and reliefs made of clay and terracotta are among others in the collections of the Art Museum Nörvenich (North Rhine-Westphalia) and the European Culture Foundation (Germany). 

Honors

The sculptor and poet was also involved in various cultural organizations.

• Since it was founded in 1981, she has been a member of the “Hürther Artists” working group, of which she was spokesperson for ten years.
• Member of the female artists' association and the Rhein-Erf group of authors. In 1996 she was awarded the "Ring of Honor for Fine Arts". 
• 2008 Honorary membership in the Artists' Forum of the European Culture Foundation (Germany)

literature

• Elfriede Luise Vogel: "Workpieces clay-bronze-stone". Ed .: Dietrich-Eckart Straub and Willibald Völsing, Verlag-Vertrieb Edition Marco -VG, Bonn 2012
• Elfriede Luise Vogel: "Calls as evidence of the times", comments on current affairs. Self-published. 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ EKS-Künstler-Archiv EL Vogel, European Culture Foundation (Germany), 2010
2. ↑ https://www.meaus.com/00142-elfriede-vogel.htm
3. ↑ http://www.meaus.com/0-156-elfriede-vogel.htm
4. ↑ http://www.europaeische-kultur-stiftung.org/