Jakob Schmitt (sculptor)

Jakob Schmitt (born October 1891 in Mainz ; † December 13, 1955 ) was a German sculptor who was blind to the war .

Life

Jakob Schmitt learned the profession of silversmith . During the First World War , on December 24, 1914, while on patrol on the Franco-German front line near Roye (Somme) , his eyes were so badly injured by a bullet that he became blind. After he was first cared for in a field hospital , he came back to Germany on a hospital train to the eye clinic in Frankfurt am Main .

There he made his first attempts at modeling as a therapy, which had already been customary in appropriate institutions since the 1880s, in order to train perception with the hands and fingers. During his seven-year training, he lived in a home for the blind in Frankfurt. After he first made copies of palpable plaster figures, he began his own creative work.

In 1923 he married his wife Maria geb. Fath. From 1923 to 1934 he lived in Mainz-Kostheim in his own house with a studio at Schiersteiner Strasse 17. In 1934 he moved to Kastel and had a large studio there in the Reduit .

Works

• 1919–1921: Duck catcher at the flax market in Mainz
• –1931: Life-size figure of Christ crucified (bronze cast as a grave cross today on the artist's final resting place in the Mombach forest cemetery)
• 1941: Mask with groping hands (self-portrait)

Further works can be found as a permanent exhibition in the Heimatmuseum Mainz-Kostheim .

literature

• Armin Thomas: Incredible feeling in the hands - the blind sculptor once created the duck catcher at Flachsmarkt-Brunen. In: Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz ; Christmas 2014 (December 24, 2014); P. 14.
• Hans Körner: A blind sculptor - Jakob Schmitt from Mainz. (Series: "Kleine Mainzer Bücherei"; Volume XVI.) Krach, Mainz 1984.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The tombstone refers to December 13th; the newspaper article on December 23rd.