Hans Walther (sculptor, 1888)

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Hans Walther (born May 28, 1888 in Apolda ; † November 4, 1961 in Erfurt ) was a German sculptor .

Live and act

Hans Walther was the son of the Apolda stonemason Carl Walther, who produced grave monuments on the former Friedhofstraße (today Lessingstraße) on behalf of his customers for installation in the old cemetery (later a park, today built with the Lessing School). After the family moved to Erfurt in 1896, the father set up a new workshop there, which flourished and soon made it possible to build his own house on Alsen-Strasse (since 1950: Schulze-Delitzsch-Strasse).

After attending grammar school and obtaining his Abitur , Hans began studying with Professor Adolf Brütt at the Grand Ducal Art School in Weimar in 1908 . Soon afterwards he moved to Berlin , where he continued to study with Hugo Lederer . In his search for his own artistic style, he was influenced by the Berlin artist secession and the expressionism of Herwarth Walden . During a study trip to Paris , he met Auguste Rodin . At the suggestion of Max Klinger , he was accepted into the German Association of Artists in 1910 . Since then, he has left numerous traces of his work in the Erfurt cityscape - for example with a facade decoration on a shipping company.

The traumatic experiences as an army soldier in the First World War shaped his view of the world and his conception of art. The numerous monuments to the fallen, which he designed in the post-war period, renounce any glorification of violence and national chauvinism. Some of these works of art immediately sparked malicious comments, rejection and outrage - such as the 1924 monument to the killed soldiers of the Erfurt Jäger Regiment on Horseback No. 6 , that of members of the " Stahlhelm " and after 1933 of the National Socialists who came to power denounced and finally disposed of in 1939. The memorial that was erected in Straussfurt near Sömmerda, however, survived the Nazi era.

The forms of expression of the figures are reminiscent of the handwriting of the artist Ernst Barlach, who is related to him . During the Nazi era, many of his grave monuments in the Erfurt main cemetery were removed or mutilated as " degenerate art ". On the other hand, stones in crystalline, expressionistic forms were spared - including five monuments alone in the New Jewish Cemetery , but also the expressionist crypt for a master gardener from 1920.

From 1934, “building-related art” became mandatory in new public buildings. Hans Walther also benefited from this. In 1935, for example, he was able to design the front of the new Sparkasse am Fischmarkt in Erfurt, just like the Sparkasse am Anger in 1930 .

  • Hans Walther's crypt in the main cemetery in Erfurt, 1920

  • Reliefs by Hans Walther, at Sparkasse am Anger in Erfurt, 1930

  • “Winterhilfswerk”: Relief to the Sparkasse at the Fischmarkt in Erfurt, Hans Walther 1935

  • Bronze relief from 1947 on the ruins of the Erfurt Barfüßerkirche as a reminder of its destruction in 1944

In 1935 Julie Siegfried financed two bronze figures created by Walther in the Brühler Garten in Erfurt with her “Wilhelm Siegfried Foundation” : the frog prince and mother with (five) children .

Hans Walther's studio in Gartenstrasse, which was built in 1922 and expanded in 1924, (and his two houses) were badly damaged in the bombing raid on Erfurt on Good Friday in 1945. In the meantime nothing reminds of the existence of the artist's spacious workspace created by the architect Karl Meinhardt .

After the liberation from National Socialism , Walther devoted himself not only to numerous stone portraits of people close to him, but also to the design of a dance of death cycle from 1947, which commemorates the destruction of the Erfurt Barefoot Church by a British air mine on Death Sunday 1944 during World War II . In November 2012 the “Initiativkreis Barfüßerkirche” had a bronze relief made on the basis of a found plaster cast.

Hans Walther died in 1961 and found his resting place in the main cemetery in Erfurt , which is adorned by a female figure carved by himself.

Works

literature

  • Eberhard Menzel: The sculptor Hans Walther (1881–1961). In: Apoldaer Heimat. Contributions to the nature and local history of the Apolda district. 1995, p. 16ff.
  • Peter Franz : Martial Idols. The language of the war memorials in Thuringia. A nationwide representation of the stock and a critical analysis of its iconographic and verbal messages, ed. Thuringian Forum for Education and Science e. V. Jena 2001, ISBN 3-935850-04-2 , p. 92 ff.
  • Ruth Menzel: Monuments in Gispersleben. In: Stadt und Geschichte , November 2006, p. 29ff.

Web links

Commons : Hans Walther  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruth and Eberhard Menzel: Boy with skipping rope remained the only trace. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung , September 18, 2010.
  2. ↑ Steffen Raßloff : Death from the air. Hans Walther's dance of death at the Barefoot Church. In: Thüringer Allgemeine from March 2, 2013.
  3. ↑ Brochure of the "Initiativkreis Barfüßerkirche" Erfurt, November 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Walther, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Apolda
DATE OF DEATH 4th November 1961
Place of death Erfurt