Otto Pilz

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Signature of Otto Pilz
Grave of Otto Pilz in the Trinity cemetery in Dresden

Otto Pilz (born April 30, 1876 in Sonneberg , † April 1, 1934 in Dresden ) was a German sculptor . He mainly created naturalistic animal sculptures.

Life

Otto Pilz was born as the first of three children to a toy manufacturer in Sonneberg. His mother died in 1887. Otto Pilz was a pupil of Reinhard Möller at the Sonneberg industrial school and went to Dresden in 1895, where he worked with Hugo Spieler (1854–1922) at the Royal Saxon School of Applied Arts under the direction of Carl Ludwig Theodor Graff (1844–1906 ), Alfred Diethe (1836–1919) and Paul Hermann Naumann (1851–1938) studied figural modeling, among other things. Pilz traveled to Greece and the Orient for several weeks with the sculptor Oskar Erich Hösel (1869–1953) in early June 1898, before continuing his studies with Gerhard Janensch and Ernst Herter at the Royal Prussian Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in the winter semester of 1898 . However , there is no evidence for a student body at Reinhold Begas , as it should have happened according to Thieme-Becker .

He probably finished his studies around 1902 and went first to Sonneberg and at the end of the year to Wedell near Arnswalde , where he studied the animal world, which plays a central role in his overall sculptural work. Pilz returned near Dresden in 1905 and initially lived in the Künstlerhaus Dresden-Loschwitz , for whose staircase he created the surviving figure Leuchtenmann in 1907 , and from 1908 in Blasewitz and Striesen . Presumably in 1913 he married Erna Lucie Paula Elm. The marriage had son Peter, who died in World War II. Erna Pilz survived both and died on May 29, 1957 in Dresden.

In 1915, Pilz was drafted into a border guard unit in the Eastern Ore Mountains as part of the First World War . At the time he was a member of the artists' association Die Zunft , into which he was accepted in 1909. In the same year he became a founding member of the Dresden Artists' Association , of which he was a member until 1921. From 1923 to 1927 Pilz was a board member of the Saxon Art Association . On May 1, 1933, Pilz became a member of the NSDAP and died the following year on April 1, 1934 “after a long and serious illness” in Dresden. His grave, which is under monument protection, is in the Trinitatisfriedhof .

plant

Leuchtenmann in the
Loschwitz artist house

In 1898 Otto Pilz traveled to the Orient with Oskar Erich Hösel for several weeks. In 1903, Hösel became the artistic director of the Meissen porcelain factory , which he carefully modernized. Above all, the animal figures of the manufactory raised the Meissen porcelain on a par with porcelain works from Copenhagen ( Royal Copenhagen ) and Nymphenburg ( Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg ) . As a freelancer for the manufactory, Otto Pilz created numerous plaster models from 1905 to 1912, of which the manufactory bought around 30. In addition to works by Max Hermann Fritz , Otto Pilz's designs were "particularly attractive". The nine-part monkey chapel from 1908 is still very popular and, like Pilz's dog model wind chimes , is still made today.

Bear fountain with two turtles in Dresden-Striesen

Pilz also created models for the Schwarzburger workshops for porcelain art and the porcelain manufacturer Lorenz Hutschenreuther . Further small-scale models were created for various ceramic workshops, including Schön & Co., ceramic art workshops in Niederlößnitz and for the Royal Danish Court Terracotta Factory P. Ipsens Enke in Copenhagen. The WMF acquired several plaster models of Otto Pilz, which were used as a template for galvanoplastics.

From 1905, Pilz made models for bronze sculptures of various sizes. While numerous animal sculptures were designed for interior design, other sculptures were created for public spaces. They were realized in bronze, but also in shell limestone .

Numerous works in public space have not been preserved. They were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 or are considered a war loss. Other works, such as the frog and bear fountain in Dresden- Löbtau or bronze sculptures of a piglet and a calf on buildings in the Dresden slaughterhouse have been lost after 1945 and 1989 respectively. Otto Pilz's life-size Uhlan equestrian statue, consecrated in Oschatz in 1927 , was probably melted down around 1945. The plastic of the so-called "Bear Fountain" in Chemnitz was stolen in 2000.

Group of lions in the Dresden Zoo
Main portal of the school on Melanchthonstrasse in Dresden Neustadt

Works by Otto Pilz in public spaces can be found primarily in Dresden today. In Dresden Zoo two sculptures have been preserved from Pilz. In 1908, Pilz created a group of lions and tigers for the exhibition palace on Stübel-Allee, which flanked the main entrance. While the whereabouts of the group of tigers is unknown, the group of lions is now in the rosarium of the Dresden zoo. Another work by Otto Pilz in the Dresden Zoo is the bronze sculpture Faunjunge with two young bears , which he created in 1912. Another cast of the sculpture is now in private hands.

The main portal of the 4th technical and advanced training school designed by Hans Erlwein on Melanchthonstrasse in the Inner Neustadt district in Dresden is decorated with two groups of putti on the outside, two male busts on the inside and the Dresden city coat of arms with two small putti figures as a keystone. The portal work was carried out from 1914 to 1916 by Otto Pilz in shell limestone concrete.

Bear cubs were one of Otto Pilz's favorite motifs. The pair of young bears are on their tombstone, looking down at the grave site. Other solitary bears found themselves in similar crouching and crouching positions, or balancing on a ball. Such sculptures were created in porcelain and bronze, among others, but also in works for public spaces, such as the frog and bear fountain in Löbtau. A large bear sculpture of this type, which is still preserved today, is located on a house designed by Martin Pietzsch in Dresden- Striesen in 1928 . The bear fountain with two turtles is about two meters high and shows a bear cub crouching on a pillar and looking at two small turtles that act as gargoyles.

One of the few preserved works by Pilz outside Dresden is the Elsterbrunnen in Bad Elster . The fountain, inaugurated in 1929, shows a black magpie and is today in front of the city's bathing museum.

Honor

In the Mockritz district of Dresden , Otto-Pilz-Straße bears the name of the sculptor.

Works

Elsterbrunnen in Bad Elster
Faun sculpture in the Dresden Zoo

Preserved works in public space:

  • around 1908: Group of lions - Dresden Zoo
  • around 1911: Faun with two young bears - Dresden Zoo
  • 1914–1916: Main portal of the 4th technical and advanced training school - Dresden-Neustadt
  • 1920: Animal reliefs on a wall head - Calberlastraße in Loschwitz (attribution uncertain)
  • around 1929: Bear fountain with two turtles - Dresden-Striesen
  • around 1929: Elsterbrunnen - Bad Elster
  • around 1933: Young bears - group of figures on his tombstone

Small sculptures can be found in the following museums:

literature

Web links

Commons : Otto Pilz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Until 1909, Pilz was a member of the artists' association Die Elbier , which was taken over by the guild in 1909 . The guild disbanded in 1918.
  2. ^ The Dresden Artists' Association dissolved in 1939.
  3. See obituary in: Vogel, p. 24.
  4. Hermann Jedding: Meissen porcelain of the 19th and 20th centuries . Keyser, Munich 1981, p. 112.
  5. A single figure in the chapel achieved the price of DM 9,500 in 1990. Cf. Horst Makus: Art Nouveau ceramics in the first half of '90 beautiful and satyrical . In: Antiques Newspaper . No. 17, 1990, p. 548.
  6. Vogel, p. 89.
  7. To what extent it is the same sculpture or a cast of the same model is unknown.
  8. Dresdner Anzeiger , Volume 186, No. 119, April 30, 1916, p. 8.