Wilhelm Gerstel (sculptor)

Wilhelm Gerstel (born January 7, 1879 in Bruchsal , † January 21, 1963 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German sculptor , medalist and university professor .

Life

Wilhelm Gerstel began training as a stonemason and stone sculptor in Pforzheim in 1894 and also attended evening courses at the Pforzheim School of Applied Arts . From 1898 to 1903 he studied in the sculpture class with Hermann Volz at the Karlsruhe Art Academy . In 1905/1906 he traveled to Italy and then settled in Karlsruhe as a freelance artist. In 1913 he moved to Berlin . From 1915 he took part in the First World War and was a prisoner of war until 1920 . After a year as a professor at the Karlsruhe Art Academy, he moved to Berlin in 1921Appointed teaching institute of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin , in 1924 as a teacher of sculpture (free art) at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Art , where he taught until he retired on February 1, 1945. With Cay-Hugo von Brockdorff , Fritz Cremer , Ruthild Hahne , Gustav Seitz and Waldemar Grzimek , very successful sculptors were among his students. He received no more public contracts during the National Socialist era . In 1943/1944, both his studio at the place of work and his private house burned out completely.

After being reappointed in 1946, he moved to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1948, where he became head of the sculpture class at the Freiburg Art Academy in 1949 and stayed until it was dissolved in 1956.

In his first marriage, Gerstel was married to the Bremen painter Mili Plump (1879–1947). The later sculptor Doris Balz came from this marriage .

In his second marriage from 1930 he was married to the considerably younger sculptor Christiane Gerstel-Naubereit (1901-2001), who in the 1950s tried very hard to restore the works he had previously created and saved.

plant

Gerstel's way of working can be described as precise and academic; Before the sculptural implementation, his students had to draw drafts based on models for weeks. This calculated method, which goes back to Leonardo da Vinci and others, made him the opponent of his colleagues Edwin Scharff and Ludwig Gies as well as the representative of contemporary modernism . In his (unpublished) work Vom Wesen der Plastik he laid down his artistic conceptions. Theobald Hauck (1902–1980) was one of his students.

With the architect Eugen Schmohl , he created a fountain with the motif of the floating person until 1926 . The fountain was presented at the GeSoLei exhibition in the same year and was later installed in Bochum's rose garden . On July 14, 1929, an identical fountain as the Enke fountain was set up on Breitscheidplatz in Cottbus . In 2007 this served as a model for restoring the Bochum fountain.

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  Sculpture of the Archangel Michael on the dome of the Christ Church in Mannheim

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  Lever monument in Loerrach

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  Fountain in Bochum City Park

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  Enke fountain in Cottbus

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  “Aspiring”, Freiburg

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  "Mourners" in Neu-Temmen

• 1908: figurative architectural decoration for the Christ Church in Mannheim (architects: Theofil Frey, Christian Schrade )
• 1910: Hebel memorial in the park in front of the Hebel school in Lörrach (made by the Hans Clement foundry in Munich)
• around 1911: Allegories “Truth” and “Science” for the Collegiate Building I of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (architect: Hermann Billing )
• 1912: Sculpture group of the four seasons in Bruchsal
• 1925: Statue of the Fallen Memorial for the Queen Elisabeth Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 3 in Lietzenseepark in Berlin-Charlottenburg (Architect: Eugen Schmohl)
• 1927: Plastic architectural decoration on the extension of the Wertheim department store on Leipziger Platz in Berlin (architect: Eugen Schmohl; destroyed)
• 1928: Sculpture of a "mourner" for the tomb of the Michalowsky family in Neu-Temmen (architect: Franz Seeck )

Honors

• April 26, 1955: Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class

literature

• Joseph August Beringer : Gerstel, Wilhelm . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 13 : Gaab-Gibus . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1920, p. 484 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Hans H. Hofstätter (Ed.), Dietmar Lüdke et al. (Arrangement): Wilhelm Gerstel 1879–1963. Plastic and graphic work (catalog for the exhibition at the Augustinermuseum Freiburg, September 29 - October 28, 1979). Freiburg im Breisgau 1979.
• University of the Arts Berlin (ed.): Christine Fischer-Defoy : Art. Power. Politics. The Nazification of the art and music colleges in Berlin. Elefanten Press, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-88520-271-9 , S. #.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Gerstel (sculptor)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Gerstel in the catalog of the German National Library
• www.wilhelm-gerstel.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ artist. Wilhelm Gerstel. German Society for Medal Art, accessed on July 12, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Gisela Hildebrand: Bremer Frauenmuseum - Portraits of Women: Bertha Plump ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 2, 2011.
3. ^ Viktor Carl: Lexicon of Palatinate Personalities. Hennig Verlag, Edenkoben 2004, ISBN 3-9804668-5-X , p. 329.
4. ↑ Chronicle 1929 on the pages of the Cottbus Municipal Collection , accessed on February 14, 2020.
5. ↑ Exemplary Cottbus Enke Fountain (June 12, 2007) on cottbus.de , accessed on October 22, 2011.
6. ^ Sculpture project. In: Badische Zeitung of October 20, 2017 (website subject to license)
7. ↑ Information from the Federal President's Office