Wolfgang Franke (artist)

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Wolfgang Franke (born August 8, 1908 in Heilbronn , † May 26, 1982 in Neuenbürg ) was a German artist .

Life

Franke was the son of a draftsman , modeller and chaser , whose artistic talent he inherited. After school, he abandoned the original plans to study music and began an apprenticeship as a steel engraver in Pforzheim , where he attended the goldsmiths and arts and crafts school with Julius Müller-Salem , who influenced him in drawing, as well as the sculpting class with Adolf Sautter .

In 1929 Franke moved to Berlin , where he was accepted at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts and was taught by Wilhelm Gerstel . In Berlin he soon received public commissions, including the five large portrait reliefs for the Berlin Robert Koch Hospital . In 1936 he won the Grand State Prize, which was accompanied by a scholarship .

In 1937 Franke finished his studies and moved into a studio in the former Royal Art School in the Berlin studio community in Klosterstrasse , where Käthe Kollwitz and other artists who were considered degenerate were also active. His conscription to the military ended in 1941 Franke's studio time in Berlin. With the destruction of the studio house on Klosterstrasse in 1945, almost all of Franke's pre-war work was lost.

After being a prisoner of war, Franke returned to Pforzheim in 1947, where he taught drawing and modeling at the goldsmith 's school. In 1970 he retired to devote himself only to free artistic work.

plant

Franke created sculptures, medals, drawings and paintings. Sculptures and medals were often created on behalf of the public, his drawings and pastel paintings were mostly of a private nature. He worked in the group of the Buslat artists' guild at Schloss Bauschlott , where he exhibited several times in the 1960s. Retrospective exhibitions took place in Pforzheim in 1978 and 1999.

Sculptures, reliefs and busts

  • Portrait reliefs of the physicians Paracelsus, Semmelweis, Koch, Röntgen and Virchow (1930s), Robert Koch Hospital , Berlin (destroyed in World War II)
  • Ponder (1962)
  • Reading Girl (1963)
  • Mother and Child (1964), a group of figures commissioned by the State Health Office in Buchen , other casts in other locations
  • Bust of Friedrich Tilegant (1968)
  • Bust of Duke Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenburg (1971) for a school in Lome, Togo
  • Bust of Dean Dixon (1973)

Medals and Plaques

  • Johannes Reuchlin plaque from the city of Pforzheim (1970)
  • Fritz Erler Medal of the Fritz Erler School Pforzheim (1976)
  • Jubilee coin for the 700th anniversary of the city of Neuenbürg (1977)
  • Medal for the 800th anniversary of the consecration of the Cistercian monastery in Maulbronn (1978)

literature

  • Michael Koch: Wolfgang Franke , in: Badische Heimat 58, Heft 4, 1978, pp. 91-100.
  • Cultural Office of the City of Pforzheim (Ed.): Wolfgang Franke 1908–1982 , Pforzheim 1999.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heilbronn City Archives, archive signature ZS-16702
  2. ↑ Stadtmuseum Pforzheim: Invitation to the Wolfgang Franke exhibition, October 24 to November 28, 1999, Pforzheim 1999
personal data
SURNAME Franke, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Heilbronn
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1982
Place of death Neuenbürg