Werner Meurer

Werner Meurer (born April 19, 1911 in Laufersweiler ; † July 4, 1986 in Cologne ) was a German wood, stone and bronze sculptor.

Life

After completing his academic training at the Werkschule in Dortmund in 1931 and then at the Academy in Düsseldorf (where Alexander Zschokke was a master student until he emigrated in 1937), Meurer continued to develop artistically by taking on commissioned work. One of his first larger works in addition to tombs in various cemeteries in the Moselle region was the sculpture “Ross und Reiter” in the Electoral Palace in Koblenz from 1953. Meurer created this figure on the right-hand podium of the main staircase in the entrance hall - similar to Otto Rumpf 's figure “Europe auf dem Stier ”on the left pedestal - with reference to the lion sculptures that used to be there. In 1950 he was one of the first artists based there to move to the artists' colony on the Asterstein in Koblenz. He was especially friends with Ludwig Thormaehlen , Josef Breuer (1912–1956) and Edvard Frank . In April 1955, for family reasons, Meurer accepted a permanent position as a cathedral sculptor at the Cologne cathedral building hut, where he worked until 1976. He decided to take this path in life in order to take care of his family after having met his future wife Elisabeth Rabe von Pappenheim a few years earlier in Koblenz. At Cologne Cathedral, for example, he created a frieze over forty meters long on the north transept. His most important work at this place of work is a larger-than-life sculpture of the archangel "Raphael" from 1967. Some of his works can be seen in a permanent exhibition at the Hunsrück Museum in Simmern . The Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz owns a number of works by Werner Meurer. A bronze sculpture "Portrait of Alexander Zschokke", his teacher, from 1974 is in the Basel Historical Museum.

Important works (selection)

• 1951–1953 Ross and Reiter ( Electoral Palace Koblenz )
• since 1955 frieze on the north transept and many individual figures ( Cologne Cathedral )
• 1956 and 1961 figures Antonius and Madonna in Mönchengladbach
• since 1957 works in the Imshausen community near Bebra
• 1959 Boy with Rooster (owned by the Simmern district savings bank)
• 1960 Relief and stone sculpture at Rheydt High School
• 1967 Archangel Raphael ( Cologne Cathedral )
• 1980 own exhibition, Glöckner Gallery, Cologne; Sculptures, woodcuts and drawings.
• 1984–1986 collaboration on the Wimperg of the Bonifatiusportal ( Cologne Cathedral )
• 1984 own exhibition in Simmern with sculptures, woodcuts, sketches and drawings.

literature

• Josef Heyen: Werner Meurer and the Cologne Cathedral, in: Association for History and Art of the Middle Rhine (editor): Mittelrheinische Hefte 12, Koblenz 1986 (Görres Verlag), ISSN  0173-1335
• Joachim Dollwet, Franz-Josef Heyen , Hajo Knebel: Werner Meurer as a greeting for his 75th birthday, in: Association for History and Art of the Middle Rhine (editor): Mittelrheinische Hefte 12, Koblenz 1986 (Görres Verlag), ISSN  0173-1335
• The artist house on the Asterstein in Koblenz. Documentation and exhibition. Koblenz 1987 (Parliament's commission for the history of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate), pp. 122–125.
• Fritz Schellack: A sculptor from Laufersweiler, in: Hunsrücker Heimatblätter, No. 34, 1994, pp. 46–52