Wilhelm Lehmbruck (4 January 188125 March 1919) was a German

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Biography

Born in Meiderich (part of

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in No ...

from 1905), he was the fourth of eight children born to the miner Wilhelm Lehmbruck and his wife Margaretha. He was able to study sculpture arts at the School of Applied Arts in

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

by a stipend from the municipal authorities. In 1899 he began to make a living by doing illustrations for scientific publications. He trained at the

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová ...

and is associated with the

Düsseldorf school of painting The Düsseldorf school of painting is a term referring to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Academy (now the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf or Düsseldorf State ...

from 1901 to 1906. On leaving the academy Lehmbruck worked as an independent artist in Düsseldorf. He exhibited for the first time at the Deutsche Kunstausstellung, in Cologne in 1906. He was impressed by the sculptures of Auguste Rodin, and traveled to England, Italy, the Netherlands, and Paris. In 1907, he married Anita Kaufmann, and they had three sons. In 1912, Lehmbruck exhibited in the

Folkwang Museum Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and pat ...

in Hagen, with Egon Schiele. In 1914, he had his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie Levesque. He contributed to an exhibition at the Grand Palais in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. From 1910–1914 he lived in Paris. He frequented the Café du Dôme, where he met sculptors such as Modigliani, Brâncuși, and

Archipenko Arkhypenko ( uk, Архипенко), also transliterated as Arkhipenko, Archipenko, is a Ukrainian-language family name of patronymic derivation from the Slavic first name Arkhyp/Arkhip (). The Belarusian-language version is Arkhipienka. The sur ...

. During

World War I 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 served as a

paramedic A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

at a military hospital in Berlin. The suffering and misery he saw there are reflected in his late sculptures such as ''Fallen Man'' (1915–16). He suffered from severe depression and fled the war by going to

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

at the end of 1916. There he made contact with the socialist, L. Rubiner, who collaborated on

Franz Pfemfert Franz Pfemfert (20 November 1879, Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland) – 26 May 1954, Mexico City) was a German journalist, editor of ''Die Aktion'', literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote u ...

's ''Aktion''. He was elected to the

Prussian Academy of Arts The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and late ...

in Berlin in early 1919. After the war, he returned to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

where he committed suicide on 25 March 1919.

Sculptures

Lehmbruck's sculptures mostly concentrate on the human body and are influenced by Naturalism and Expressionism. His works, including female nudes, are marked by a sense of melancholy and an elongation of form common to

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It ...

. Throughout his career, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe placed his friend Lehmbruck's sculptures and those of

Aristide Maillol Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French Sculpture, sculptor, Painting, painter, and printmaking, printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford ...

into his buildings and designs.

Collections

The

Lehmbruck Museum The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany. Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a sub ...

(Duisburg, Germany) has in its collection about 100 sculptures, 40 paintings, 900 drawings and 200 graphical works by Wilhelm Lehmbruck. The museum, named after Wilhelm Lehmbruck, was originally designed by his son,

Manfred Lehmbruck ''Manfred: A dramatic poem'' is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction. Byr ...

(1913–1992). The

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(New York City), the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Städel Museum (Frankfurt, Germany), the

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its s ...

(Berlin, Germany) and the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

(London, England) are among the public collections holding works by Wilhelm Lehmbruck. One of his sculptures can be seen in the

Villa Tugendhat Villa Tugendhat is an architecturally significant building in Brno, Czech Republic. It is one of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe, and was designed by the German architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. It w ...

.Jim Rendon (March 22, 2007)
A Mies Masterwork, Deteriorating and in Dispute
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

Gallery

File:Lehmbruck1.jpg, Schlaf (1907) File:Lml2.jpg, Stehende weibliche Figur (1910) File:Lml3.jpg, Weiblicher Torso (Torso der Großen Stehenden) (1910) File:Lml6.jpg, Kniende (1911) File:Kniende Lehmbruck.jpg, Kniende ( - Bronze) File:Male Nude Model - Wilhelm Lehmbruck.jpg, ''Male Nude Model'' at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(1912) File:Lml4.jpg, Große Sinnende (1913) File:Lml5.jpg, Emporsteigender Jüngling (1913) File:LML9.jpg, Der Gestürzte (1915/16) File:Lml8.jpg, Porträtkopf Fritz von Unruh (1918) File:Tugendhat zevnitr.jpg, Interior of

with sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck (foreground, left)

References

Catalogue raisonné

* Erwin Petermann d.. ''Die Druckgraphik von Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Verzeichnis.'' Stuttgart: Hatje, 1964 * Gerhard Händler, ''Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Die Zeichnungen der Reifezeit.'' Stuttgart: Hatje, 1985, * Margarita C. Lahusen, ''Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Gemälde und großformatige Zeichnungen.'' Munich: Hirmer, 1997, . * Dietrich Schubert, ''Wilhelm Lehmbruck – Catalogue raisonné der Skulpturen (1898–1919).'' Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001, .

External links

*
Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehmbruck, Wilhelm 1881 births 1919 deaths Sculptors who committed suicide Modern sculptors German sculptors German male sculptors 20th-century sculptors People from Duisburg People from the Rhine Province Suicides in Germany 1919 suicides Düsseldorf school of painting