Selmar Werner

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Selmar Werner (born December 12, 1864 in Thiemendorf near Jena; † August 19, 1953 in Graupa ) was a German sculptor , painter , graphic artist and medalist .

life and work

Bearer figures at the Saxon State House
Fountain of the Reconciliation Church, Dresden
Schiller Monument in Dresden
Portal figures on the AOK administration building
Marble relief on Karl May's tomb in Radebeul

Selmar Werner was the third of ten children of a farmer. Although he was born in Thiemendorf, the family soon moved to Gera , where Werner went to school. After finishing school, a four-year carpenter apprenticeship with a wood carver followed in Gera . He then moved to Berlin and worked there as a cabinet maker for furniture carvings and as a stucco carver . At the same time, he conducted modeling studies. At times Werner worked for Theodor Richard Thiele in Hamburg, who advised him to study at the Dresden Art Academy . Werner finally studied in Dresden from 1892 to 1894; Ernst Barlach and Richard Suhr were among his fellow students . From 1894 to 1896 Werner was a master student of the sculptor Robert Diez . Through his brokerage, the Meissen porcelain factory acquired Werner's model of the violinist Gypsy in 1897 . Werner received several awards during his studies.

After completing his studies, Werner started his own business from around 1898. At that time his studio was at Blasewitzer Strasse  9 in Dresden- Johannstadt , next to the Trinitatiskirche . Among other things, he made tombs (for example the Schreiber tomb in the south cemetery in Leipzig ), busts (for example by the architect Wilhelm Kreis ) and building sculptures (for example the giants at the Saxon Estates House , now the seat of the Dresden Higher Regional Court ). From 1899 on, Werner's works were shown several times at exhibitions in Dresden.

After 1900 several portrait busts were created, for example by the painters Hans Unger (1903) and Gotthardt Kuehl (1908) as well as the singer Carl Perron . His work also includes the well-known and copied marble bust of the writer Karl May , who was his friend and essential patron. Werner had already met May in 1901 when he received the order from him to create the tomb for May's friend Richard Plöhn , which was later to be a common inheritance funeral with the Mays. The tomb itself was created by the Radebeul architect Paul Ziller in the form of a Greek temple of Nikes , Werner made the marble group of figures "Angels receive an earthly soul". Werner stayed, together with the painter and illustrator of the Karl May volumes, Sascha Schneider and the architect Wilhelm Kreis , often in May's Villa Shatterhand in Radebeul . A bronze bust of Winnetou exhibited in the Karl May Museum , probably not made until 1925, and an oil portrait of May was also created by Selmar Werner. His oeuvre includes around 50 portrait sculptures.

At the beginning of 1906 Werner became August Hudler's successor as a lecturer in sculpture at the Dresden Art Academy; from 1907 to 1927 he worked there as a professor of sculpture and owner of a master workshop. Selmar Werner was an early member of the German Association of Artists . His name can be found in the list of members for the third annual DKB exhibition in the Grand Ducal Museum in Weimar in 1906 . Between 1908 and 1911 Selmar Werner designed bronze figures of the four evangelists for the Zionskirche in Dresden; the church was destroyed in the Second World War except for the surrounding walls, but a monumental crucifixion group of Werner on the church facade was preserved. In 1909 he was a founding member of the Dresden Artists' Association . From 1910 Werner had a studio in Graupa , but still lived in Dresden. For the portal of the church in his hometown he created a tympanum with the theme "Let the little children come to me". The Schiller monument made of white marble from Lasa in Dresden Neustadt, the architecture of which was designed by Oswin Hempel , is regarded as Werner's main work; it was opened to the public on May 9, 1914.

In 1915 Werner married the 24-year-old actress Selma Martha Lorenz, then known under the stage name Lotte Lorenz . In the 1920s Werner created other bronze figures and monuments, such as the memorial for those who fell in March in Gera and in 1928 a bronze Jesus figure on the memorial fountain in the Church of Reconciliation in Dresden- Striesen, which was dedicated to the victims of the First World War . In 1924 Werner was given early retirement due to lack of funds at the Dresden Art Academy and in 1930 he retired. His Dresden studio was destroyed in the bombing of the city in 1945. After the war he finally moved to Graupa. One of his last works is a 1952 Madonna for the grave of the Karl May publishing director Euchar Albrecht Schmid, who died in 1951 . Werner died in Graupa in 1953 and was buried in the Werner family grave in the southern cemetery in Gera.

Selmar Werner's pupil (selection)

Selmar Werner trained around 70 students. They included:

Works (selection)

literature

  • Rolf Günther: Selmar Werner (1864–1953). (Catalog for the special exhibition "Selmar Werner (1864–1953). Sculptures and Paintings" of the Freital Municipal Art Collection in the Haus der Heimat. April 8 - June 5, 1995) Freital 1995.
  • Rolf Günther: The symbolism in Saxony 1870-1920. Sandstein, Dresden 2005, ISBN 3-937602-36-4 .
  • Werner, Selmar . In: Ernst-Günter Knüppel: Robert Diez. Sculpture between Romanticism and Art Nouveau. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2009, pp. 191–192.
  • Werner, Selmar . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 418-419 .
  • Werner, Selmar . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 5 : V-Z. Supplements: A-G . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1961, p. 115 .

Web links

Commons : Selmar Werner  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ artist. Prof. Selmar Werner. German Society for Medal Art, accessed on November 26, 2014 .
  2. ↑ s. List of members in the catalog of the 3rd German Association of Artists Exhibition. Weimar 1906. (p. 59) online (accessed March 30, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Werner, Selmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, painter, graphic artist and medalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Thiemendorf near Jena
DATE OF DEATH 19th August 1953
Place of death Graupa