Karl Janssen (29 May 1855 — 2 December 1927) was a German sculptor working in the

Baroque revival The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque (or Second Empire architecture in France and Wilhelminism in Germany), was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture and architectural sculptur ...

tradition; he was born and died in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

Biography

Born in a family of artists, his father was an engraver and his brother Peter Janssen was a painter. He studied at the Königlich Preußischen Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1872 to 1880. In 1878 he garnered a scholarship to study in Rome; he remained in Italy from 1881 to 1884. On his return his first notable commission was for a memorial portrait bust of the industrialist Poensgen (1883) for his monument in the Nordfriedhof. In 1897, together with , whom he had known from their days at the Akademie, he was commissioned to produce a sculptured group for the visit to the city by Kaiser Wilhelm, on the theme of ''Father Rhine and his Daughters''. The result so pleased Düsseldorfers that Janssen and Tüshaus were requested to cast a more durable version in bronze, for a city fountain. The previous year (1896), he cast an equestrian statue of the Kaiser, which was destroyed in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Since 1893 he had been teaching as a professor, taking the chair of the late , who had been his teacher. Among his outstanding pupils were

Bernhard Hoetger Bernhard Hoetger (4 May 1874 in Dortmund – 18 July 1949 in Interlaken) was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement. Life Hoetger was the son of a Dortmund blacksmith, he studied sculpture in Detmold from ...

and

Wilhelm Lehmbruck Wilhelm Lehmbruck (4 January 188125 March 1919) was a German sculptor. Biography Born in Meiderich (part of Duisburg from 1905), he was the fourth of eight children born to the miner Wilhelm Lehmbruck and his wife Margaretha. He was able to stu ...

. Following the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he was commissioned by the

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Henkel, is a German multinational chemical and consumer goods company headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is active in both the consumer and industrial sectors. Founded in 1876, the DAX company is organi ...

company to sculpt a war memorial to fallen Henkel workers, to be erected at the Henkel works in

Düsseldorf-Holthausen Holthausen is an urban quarter of Düsseldorf, part of Borough 9. It is located south of Oberbilk, west of Reisholz, north of Benrath and east of Itter and Himmelgeist. A natural border is the river Rhine. It has an area of , and 12,775 inhabi ...

. His last well-known work was also for the Henkel family, a mourning figure in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style for the family mausoleum (1925).

External links

The Karl Janssen website
1855 births 1927 deaths 19th-century sculptors 20th-century German male artists 20th-century German sculptors Artists from Düsseldorf Baroque Revival architects German male sculptors {{Germany-sculptor-stub Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni