Paul Kratz (sculptor)

Paul Kratz (born May 1, 1884 in Koblenz ; † November 27, 1958 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German sculptor who was best known for his animal sculptures.

Fighting boars

Life

Paul Kratz 1958

Paul Kratz studied sculpture with Friedrich Hausmann at the Städel . He was his assistant for two years and during this time worked on the Frankfurt fairy tale fountain and on the model for the Frankfurt council silver. He then studied at the Berlin Art Academy with Peter Breuer and gained insights into the manufacturing process of Meissen porcelain. He completed a one-year study visit in Rome.

Upon his return from Rome, Kratz was forced to work as a sculptor in order to make a living until he was gradually able to establish himself as a sculptor. Kratz created architectural sculptures, monuments, sacred art and numerous animal figures. He lived and worked mainly in Frankfurt am Main, interrupted by assignments in Bremen and Gotenhafen when the city was furnished with German art after 1939.

His master studio in Bethmannpark in Frankfurt was bombed out with almost all valuable models during World War II. Only a few buried bronze sculptures have survived. After the war, he and his wife, the sculptor and painter Gretl Kratz-Hanow (1896–1975), found emergency accommodation in a garden shed in a Grand Ducal Luxembourg estate on Burgweg in Königstein im Taunus . From there, Kratz taught the wounded in hospitals in painting and carving and lived on smaller jobs.

Works (selection)

Fighting boars, around 1900, bronze, Frankfurt Untermainkai
Panther, 1930, Palmengarten Frankfurt

literature

Thieme-Becker, Vol. 21, 1927, p. 435
Die Rheinlande, Volume 18, Commissions-Verlag at A. Bagel., 1918 Die Rheinlande, Volume 18, 1918, page 100
Alexander Bastek (arr.): Of heads and bodies. Frankfurt sculpture from the Städel , Frankfurt a. M .: Städel 2006, ISBN 9783935283113 , pp. 180-181.

Individual evidence

↑ Josephine Gabler: "The natural form must be reduced". The development of animal sculpture from an image to a problem of form . In: Alexander Bastek, Manfred Großkinsky (ed.): Of heads and bodies. Frankfurt sculpture from the Städel (catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Giersch Museum in Frankfurt am Main from April 1, 2006 to July 30, 2006). Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main 2006. ISBN 3-935283-11-3 . Pp. 44–53, here p. 51.
^ Art in public space, Frankfurt am Main: Kratz, Paul
↑ Malgorzata Stepko-Pape: The "waiting city". Gdynia - Gotenhafen (1926-1945) . Diss., University of Tübingen, 2010. p. 285.
^ Article in the Taunus Zeitung in January 1956 on the artist's 75th birthday.

Web links

Art in public space, Frankfurt am Main: Kratz, Paul (short biography), accessed on December 2, 2014.

personal data
SURNAME	Scratch, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH	May 1, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH	Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH	November 27, 1958
Place of death	Frankfurt am Main

[1] Josephine Gabler: "The natural form must be reduced". The development of animal sculpture from an image to a problem of form . In: Alexander Bastek, Manfred Großkinsky (ed.): Of heads and bodies. Frankfurt sculpture from the Städel (catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Giersch Museum in Frankfurt am Main from April 1, 2006 to July 30, 2006). Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main 2006. ISBN 3-935283-11-3 . Pp. 44–53, here p. 51.

[2] Art in public space, Frankfurt am Main: Kratz, Paul

[3] Malgorzata Stepko-Pape: The "waiting city". Gdynia - Gotenhafen (1926-1945) . Diss., University of Tübingen, 2010. p. 285.

[4] Article in the Taunus Zeitung in January 1956 on the artist's 75th birthday.