Erwin Kurz (sculptor)

Erwin Dietbald Kurz (born April 13, 1857 in Stuttgart ; † October 12, 1931 in Munich ) was a German sculptor .

Life

Kurz was born as the youngest of five children of the writer and librarian Hermann Kurz and his wife Marie Kurz , b. Freiin von Brunnow, born in Stuttgart. Marie Kurz, who came from an old noble family, was also a great-great-great-niece of the prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger and great-granddaughter of his nephew Colonel Heinrich Reinhard Ritter und Edlem von Oetinger (1738–1796), initially taught her children and thus Erwin and his sister Isolde themselves. In 1858 the family moved to Oberesslingen , where they had acquired an estate. In 1863 he moved to Kirchheim unter Teck and then to Tübingen , where Erwin's father was a librarian at the Tübingen University Library .

After graduating from Tübingen , Erwin Kurz enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich on April 24, 1876 , where he was a student of Ludwig von Löfftz . In 1878 Adolf von Hildebrand hired him as an employee in his sculpture studio in Florence . He started a family in Florence. In 1881 his son, the architect Otho Orlando Kurz, was born.

When Adolf von Hildebrand was offered a professorship in Munich in 1893, he and his family moved there. In 1899 Erwin Kurz created the two allegorical figures "Spinner" and "Weber" for the Royal Higher Weaving School in Münchberg , which still adorn the entrance portal on the inside. At the beginning of the 20th century he achieved his artistic breakthrough as a sculptor and he received numerous larger commissions afterwards.

Kurz's work includes the tomb for Henriette Eller in Munich, the Martius monument from 1905, the Bismarck bust in 1906 in the Walhalla near Regensburg, the reaper's fountain created in 1905 on the church square in Lehel and the annunciation group on the main facade of the Catholic Church of St. Gabriel in Munich-Haidhausen , which was built by his son 1925–1926. Together with his teacher Adolf von Hildebrand, he also worked on the Wittelsbacher Brunnen on Lenbachplatz in Munich.

As early as 1906 Erwin Kurz became a teacher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. At the same time he was head of the sculpture school of Wilhelm von Rümann . In 1924 he retired .

His older brother was the medic and poet Edgar Kurz .

literature

• In short, Erwin . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 134 .
• In short, Erwin . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 3 : K-P . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1956, p. 143 .
• The modern tomb at the Wiesbaden exhibition to enhance cemetery culture and tomb art 1905. Masterpieces v. Ad. Hildebrand, Herm. Hahn, Erwin Kurz, Alfred Kessel, Rudolf Bosselt and others In: Karl Richard Henker (ed.): Gravestone art. A collection of masterpieces created in memory of the dead by artists of our day. 3rd episode. Baumgärtel, Berlin 1906.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matriculation
2. ^ Matriculation