Franz Belke

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Franz Belke (born August 17, 1876 in Förde, today: Grevenbrück , † July 18, 1941 in Grevenbrück ) was a German sculptor .

life and work

Franz Belke was born as the son of master baker and innkeeper Phillip Belke in Förde (today: Grevenbrück ). After elementary school he began his apprenticeship in Wiedenbrück with Anton Mormann , a sculptor from the Wiedenbrück school . After a four-year apprenticeship, Belke worked for various sculptors in the Rhineland and Westphalia. From 1900 to 1903 he attended the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the Munich Art Academy due to his high level of talent . In 1904, Belke went into business for himself in his home town of Förde. Here in the same year the listed war memorial "Mälo" was created, on which the fallen soldiers of the Franco-German War of 1870/71 are immortalized.

Belke took part in the First World War. The war experience has deeply influenced his further work and is reflected in numerous war memorials in the near and far. The two listed cenotaphs with the lion in Bilstein and the monument at the train station in Meggen deserve special mention . Belke's main concern, however, was the representation of Christian content in stone, using marble, shell limestone and sandstone in particular. Well-known works are the St. Barbara statue in Meggen on the Lennebrücke, which is also under monument protection, the Madonna standing on the church square in Grevenbrück, the monumental figure of St. Petrus Canisius over three meters high for St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and the three meters high figure of Christ the King in Vienna.

Belke's works are characterized by monumental size and the grace and simplicity of the figures he creates; they are particularly expressed in the St. Barbara statue on the Lennebrücke in Meggen and in the Madonna statue at the church in Grevenbrück (see picture gallery below). The appreciation of Belke's work is also evident in the fact that five works he has erected in Lennestadt are listed as historical monuments .

Belke died at the age of 65 on July 18, 1941 in Grevenbrück. When an inn in Finnentrop was demolished at the beginning of 2013, a previously little-known relief made by him in 1924 from marble, which served as a cover for a cooling system for champagne bottles, was found. The find attracted a lot of attention. The Lennestadt City Museum declared the relief to be exhibit of the month 2013.

Images of selected works

  • Memorial stone for the Altenhundem - Bilstein road construction (1928)

  • Memorial in Bilstein am Krähenberg (1928/29)

  • War memorial Mälo in Grevenbrück (1904)

  • St. Barbara on the Lennebrücke in Meggen (1930)

  • War memorial in Meggen (1933)

  • Madonna on the church square in Grevenbrück

Note: brief explanations of the works can be found in the article List of architectural monuments in Lennestadt under nos. 9, 11, 38, 61 and 65

literature

  • Jochen Krause, Menschen der Heimat - Kreis Olpe, Kirchhundem 1987, article no. 37: Franz Belke, pp. 216–223.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Theodor Schneider, sculptor Franz Belke, annual issue of the Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück e. V., year 1983, p. 60f.
  2. ↑ Item : Filigree sculpture work online edition Sauerlandkurier from January 31, 2013
  3. ↑ illustrated flyer from the Lennestadt City Museum, PDF [1]
personal data
SURNAME Belke, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Grevenbrück
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1941
Place of death Grevenbrück