Josef Moest

Josef Moest (born January 13, 1873 in Cologne , † May 25, 1914 in Rath / Heumar ) was a German sculptor .

Live and act

origin

Josef Moest grew up as the second of three children of the sculptor and restorer Richard Moest and his wife Wilhelmina geb. Bischoffsberger in an upper-class environment, surrounded by his father's collection of late medieval sculptures. He had suffered from tuberculosis since his youth and had to go to Davos on many occasions.

education

After attending secondary school, he initially worked as an assistant to cathedral sculptor Peter Fuchs . From 1897 to 1902 he studied sculpture with Syrius Eberle at the Munich Academy , where he won a number of prizes. Numerous trips to Italy followed.

Activity in Cologne

Josef Moest's grave in the Melaten cemetery

After Moest opened his own studio in his parents' house (Richmodstrasse 33) on November 7, 1903, he worked as a freelance sculptor. In March 1904 he was awarded first prize in a competition for Cologne sculptors for monumental cemetery crosses (see works: Südfriedhof ). In 1904 Moest was a co-founder of the Cologne artists' association "Stil" .

The focus of his work in the following years were small religious sculptures for graves, wells and altars. In collaboration with various architects, Josef Moest also created small buildings and building sculptures . In 1912 he designed a Pietà , probably for his own grave, but it was not executed until 1956 by Wilhelm Hermann Paul Simon and placed on the family grave in Cologne's Melaten cemetery .

Landhaus Moest, Cologne-Rath / Heumar

Villa and Atelier Moest

After his father's death, Josef Moest sold his sculpture collection in 1907 to the Suermondt Museum in Aachen . In the same year he organized a competition for a house with a studio in Rath / Heumar (Alte Forststraße 2). The winner was “Stil” co-founder Franz Brantzky . In 1909 the facility, which mixed regional, “romantic” and reform movements, was able to move into.

Before his untimely death on May 5, 1914, Moest bequeathed the villa to his sister Rosa (actually: Agatha) Annacker as the “artist home”. After Rosa's death in 1955, the house and the inheritance received came to the City of Cologne. The latter is now in the Cologne City Museum . The property was acquired by the goldsmith Hein Wimmer (1902–1986). In 1987 it was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Cologne .

plant

• 1900: Sisyphus
• 1901/1902: St. Barbara (destroyed)
• 1904: Hochkreuz in Cologne's southern cemetery (preserved)
• 1904: wooden cross (small sculpture)
• 1905: St. Martin (wood), Aachen, Suermondt Museum
• 1905: St. George with Aia (small sculpture)
• 1906: Lady Godiva (small sculpture), Cologne, Cologne City Museum
• 1907: Chapel building (with architect Paul Bachmann)
• 1907: Building sculpture for the Stollwerckhaus in Cologne (architect Carl Moritz ; destroyed)
• 1907–1909: Building sculpture for the Landhaus and Atelier Moest in Rath-Heumar (architect Franz Brantzky)
• 1910: Bismarck monument (model)
• around 1910: girl with butterfly (small sculpture), sign. "Moest, Portmann & Co."
• 1911/1912: Seated persons for the Barmer Bankverein building in Düsseldorf, Breite Strasse 25 (architects Carl Moritz and Werner Stahl, preserved)
• 1910: Building sculpture for the Barmer Bankverein building in Cologne, Unter Sachsenhausen (with Georg Grasegger; architect Carl Moritz; preserved)
• 1912: Pieta / The Entombment, tomb sculpture (draft) for the family grave; Produced by WHP Simon, 1956 (shell limestone)
• Seated (white marble) for the Euskirchen tomb at the Melatenfriedhof in Cologne
• Parricida bust, RWTH Aachen
• Immakulata with groups of angels in the Minorite Church in Cologne
• High altar of St. Jakob Church in Cologne (with architect Heinrich Renard )

gallery

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literature

• Hilde Cornelius, Cornelia Geiecke: Living Past. Artists, works of art, Cologne residents at the Melaten cemetery. Schuffelen, Pulheim (2) 1997, p. 146/147. (Biography)
• Iris Benner, Michael Rief: Collection - Restore - Gothicize. The carver Richard Moest 1841–1906; for the 100th year of death. Suermondt Ludwig Museum Aachen; 2007, ISBN 3-929203-65-0 . In it: Rita Wagner: Notes on the Moest estate in the graphic collection of the Cologne City Museum , pp. 93–99.
• Freya Dannhöfer: Josef Moest (1873–1914). A Cologne sculptor between neo-Gothic and modern. Kölner Museums-Bulletin, 1995, issue 4, pp. 30-38.

Individual evidence

1. ^ List of architectural monuments in the Rath / Heumar district of Cologne
2. ↑ Dannhöfer 1995, p. 31.
3. ↑ Donnhöfer 1995, p. 36
4. ↑ Dannhöfer 1995, pp. 34–35
5. ↑ Dannhöfer 1995, p. 38
6. ↑ Cornelius / Geiecke 1997, p. 73
7. ↑ Cornelius / Geiecke 1997, pp. 80/81
8. ↑ Cornelius / Geiecke 1997, p. 46

Web links

Commons : Josef Moest  - Collection of images, videos and audio files