Fritz Melis

Flying pigeons , 1967, Bietigheim-Bissingen

Fritz Melis (* 1913 in Berlin ; † 1982 in Bietigheim-Bissingen ) was a German sculptor .

Career

From 1933 to 1936 Melis studied at the Berlin Academy of Arts, among others with Ludwig Gies and Hugo Lederer , where he got to know the Berlin tradition of naturalistic animal sculpture. After the war he started again in Stuttgart in 1946. The reduced, flowing design language of Otto Baum and the painter Walter Wörn became his model. Melis' work was also inspired by Cubism . This made Melis' design language more angular and geometric. From 1950 he worked as a lecturer for free drawing at the TH Stuttgart , where he devoted himself in particular to building sculptures with bronze birds. Fritz Melis had been a highly valued and busy sculptor for art in architecture since the 1950s. Above all, his groups of birds cast in bronze and later his highly abstract, soaring flocks of birds finally became the artist's trademarks. In 1958 he built a studio house in Bietigheim-Metterzimmer.

Honors

May 1980: Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg , presented by Prime Minister Lothar Späth

family

Roger Melis is his son.

Works (selection)

There are 26 works by Fritz Melis in Stuttgart, others in Bietigheim-Bissingen, but also all over Germany.

Friedrichshafen
- Stone inlay work in the entrance hall of the kfm. School (3 × 7 meters)
- Swan fountain
- Bronze door to the large meeting room in the town hall
Stuttgart
- Pelican Fountain (1961)
- Circling eagles , Villa Berg
- Flamingo fountain in the middle palace garden (at the café by the lake)
- Bear sculpture in front of the gymnasium and assembly hall of the Österfeldschule in Stuttgart-Vaihingen
Heilbronn
- Town hall, eagle
- Wartberg Church, bronze door
- Fountain in the playground of the trade school on Paulinenstrasse
Bietigheim-Bissingen
- Goats (1960), In the Bürgergarten
- Flying pigeons (1967), Bahnhofstrasse
- Baboon (1970), Obere Hauptstrasse
Ditzingen
- Stadtbad, artistic design of the swimming pool (1960)

gallery

Goats , 1960, Bietigheim-Bissingen
Pelican fountain , 1961, Stuttgart-Mitte
Poultry market plastic , 1972, Kirchheim / Teck
Crane statue , 1982, Wuppertal
Circling eagles , 1983, Stuttgart-East

literature

Hochbauamt der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart (Hrsg.): Art in architecture State capital Stuttgart - Works of art in the field of architecture 1949 to 1979. 1979, p. 66: Eight works by Fritz Melis
Marc Fredric Gundel: Academy student body and teaching after 1945. On the significance and problems using the example of Otto Baum and Herbert Baumann as art college teachers. Dissertation University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 1995, pp. 52–53.