Harro Magnussen

Harro Magnussen

Magnussen in his studio (1898)

Harro Magnussen (born May 14, 1861 in Hamm near Hamburg; † November 3, 1908 in Grunewald near Berlin) was a German sculptor .

Life

As the son of the painter Christian Carl Magnussen , he received his first lessons in drawing, modeling and wood carving from his father. In 1882 Harro Magnussen began studying painting at the Munich Art Academy with Nikolaus Gysis , Gabriel von Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz . Impressed by the works of the Berlin school of sculpture - particularly the neo-baroque of Reinhold Begas  - he moved to Berlin in 1888 in the studio of Bega, where he remained for five years, among other things, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial National cooperated. Self-employed since 1893, Magnussen took part in a number of competitions, but only with moderate success. In contrast, portrait busts shaped his work. His Bismarck bust of 1889 to have been sold ten years later, in more than 1,000 copies, mostly in plaster or bronze, but probably as electroforming by the WMF . In 1899, Magnussen attracted the attention of Kaiser Wilhelm II , who acquired a marble portrait of the dying Friedrich II and commissioned him with further designs for a statue of the king for the White Hall in the Berlin City Palace . With this reputation Magnussen suddenly became known to the public. His monument group for the Siegesallee Berlin brought him the Royal Crown Order IV class as an award .

Magnussen died in 1908 through suicide.

Services

Harro Magnussen had a pronounced gift for characterizing the people he modeled, which gave him a position that was respected among Berlin sculptors and the benevolence of the emperor. In an effort to do justice to reality in his works, however, he did not get beyond a certain "rigidity" in the method of representation.

Works

1889	Bust of Otto von Bismarck
1890	“The philosopher von Sanssouci in his last hours”, draft (plaster), 1900 as a gift from the artist to the Invalidenhaus Berlin , another copy today in the inventory of the Sculpture Gallery Berlin, in marble see 1898
1892	Bust of the poet Hermann Allmers (a bronze cast dated 1895 has been preserved in the Hamburger Kunsthalle since 1912 )
1892	Bust of the painter Gustav Spangenberg , plaster, National Gallery Berlin
1893	Bust of Heinrich Seidel
1894	Bismarck monument in Groß-Lichterfelde near Berlin
1894	Bust of Kommerzienrat Veit, plaster, National Gallery Berlin
1895	Bust of Emin Pasha
1895	Bust of King Frederick II
1897	Bismarck Monument in Kiel (statue)
1898	Monument to the reformer Johannes Honterus at the parish church (" Black Church "?) In Kronstadt (Transylvania)
1898	“The philosopher of Sanssouci in his last hours”, marble, lost in the death room of Friedrich II in the Sanssouci Palace , later in the Hohenzollern Museum Berlin
1898	Bismarck statue in Jever
1898	Draft for a monument to Duke Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenberg for Kiel
1899	Model for a colossal Bismarck monument on the Knivsberg (execution of the model by Adolf Brütt )
1899	Statue of King Friedrich II "at the age of his accession to the throne" for the White Hall in the Berlin City Palace
1899	Miss Maria monument in Jever
1900	Monument group of Elector Joachim II on Siegesallee in Berlin-Tiergarten, partially preserved
1901	Bust of Bishop Matthias von Jagow (replica of the bust from the Siegesallee group) in colored marble for Kaiser Wilhelm II., Brandenburg Cathedral Museum
1901/02	Marble statues of Bismarck , Moltkes and Roons for the Upper Lusatian Hall of Fame in Görlitz , removed after 1945 (lost)
1902	Draft of a memorial for August Kekulé in Bonn
1904	Monument to Albrecht von Roon , preserved on a new base at the Großer Stern in Berlin-Tiergarten
1904	decorative plastic for Primkenau Castle
1905	Statue of Martin Luther above the portal of the Luther Church on Karpfangerstraße in Hamburg; Church destroyed in 1943/44; Still since 1966 next to the church St. Nikolai in Hamburg-Moorfleet
1905	Statue of Elector Joachim II for the interior of the Berlin Cathedral
1906	Statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I in Bonn, preserved on a new base
1907	Draft for a “monument to nature research” in Jena
1908	Model for a Hermann Balck fountain in Elbing (posthumously completed around 1910)
	Bust of Klaus Groth
	Bust of Ernst Haeckel
	Bust of the Judiciary Riesser
	Monument to Hermann Allmers with a relief portrait in Rechtenfleth near Bremen
	Statuette of Frederick the Great blowing the flute
	Statuette of Frederick the Great on a walk
	Statuette thirst for life
	Monument to the sculptor Julius Moser in Görlitz, removed after 1945
	Waldersee monument in Hirschberg

gallery

• 

  Roon statue at the Großer Stern in Berlin

• 

  Bismarck statue in Kiel

• 

  Monument group 20 on Siegesallee in Berlin

• 

  Monument group 20 on Siegesallee in Berlin

• 

  Allmers monument in Rechtenfleth

• 

  Statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I in Bonn

• 

  Honterus monument in Kronstadt

• 

  Thirst for life

• 

  Jagow bust

literature

• Magnussen, Harro . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 23 : Leitenstorfer – Mander . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1929, p. 565 .
• Peter Bloch , Sibylle Einholz , Jutta von Simson (eds.): Ethos & Pathos. The Berlin School of Sculpture 1786–1914. (Exhibition catalog) Berlin 1990.
• Peter Bloch, Waldemar Grzimek : The Berlin School of Sculpture in the nineteenth century. Classic Berlin. Berlin 1978. (new edition 1994)
• Uta Lehnert: The Kaiser and the Siegesallee. Réclame Royale. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1998.
• Bernhard Maaz (Ed.): National Gallery Berlin. The XIX. Century. Inventory catalog of the sculptures. Berlin 2006.
• Eckart Schörle: Harro Magnussen (1861–1908). A sculptor at the turn of the century, between adaptation and obstinacy. In: Nordelbingen , Volume 71, 2002. pp. 75-110.

Web links

Commons : Harro Magnussen  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Luther Monument at www.hamburger-reformation.de , accessed on October 13, 2017