Hermann Noack, or Noack Foundry (German: ''Bildgießerei Hermann Noack GmbH & Co.''), is a German art

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, named after its original proprietor and his three direct descendants, all with the same name, who have run the business. Most of its works are cast in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

History

The company was founded by Hermann Noack in 1897, with early support from the sculptors August Gaul and Fritz Klimsch. Noack was born in

Oberlausitz Upper Lusatia (, ; , ; ; or ''Milsko''; ) is a historical region in Germany and Poland. Along with Lower Lusatia to the north, it makes up the region of Lusatia, named after the Slavic ''Lusici'' tribe. Both parts of Lusatia are home to the ...

and educated in

Lauchhammer Lauchhammer (, ) or Łuchow is a town in the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district, in southern Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated on the Black Elster river, approx. 17 km west of Senftenberg, and 50 km north of Dresden. History From 1815 to ...

. He learned his craft at the Gladenbeck foundry before setting up his own business. He had worked on the National Kaiser Wilhelm Monument by

Reinhold Begas Reinhold Begas (15 July 1831 – 3 August 1911) was a German sculptor. Biography Begas was born in Berlin, son of the painter Carl Joseph Begas. He received his early education (1846–1851) studying under Christian Daniel Rauch and Ludwig Wi ...

. The foundry has been run by four generations of the same family, all with the same name: * Hermann Noack I (1867-1941) * Hermann Noack II (1895-1958) * Hermann Noack III (born 1931) * Hermann Noack IV (born 1966) The business moved to Fehlerstraße in Friedenau, then a small settlement near Berlin. The premises were rebuilt after the Second World War, and the foundry remained in Friedenau until 2009. It moved to a new, larger building in

Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

in 2010, on near the River Spree.

Work

The company cast the work of sculptor Renée Sintenis from 1913 onwards, and has cast replicas of her

Berliner Bär Berliner is most often used to designate a citizen of Berlin, Germany Berliner may also refer to: People * Berliner (surname) Places * Berliner Lake, a lake in Minnesota, United States * Berliner Philharmonie, concert hall in Berlin, Germany * ...

, used as the statuette for the

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

award in the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, since the third Berlinale in 1953, The company was involved with the restoration of Johann Gottfried Schadow's copper

quadriga A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in classical antiquity and the Roman Empire. The word derives from the Latin , a contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. In Latin the word is almos ...

on the

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate ( ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was erected on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin t ...

in the 1950s, and the restoration of Friedrich Drake's gilded statue of Victory on the Berlin Victory Column. Noack also cast the ''Mother with her Dead Son'' by Käthe Kollwitz in the Neue Wache, and has made many other works for dozens of artists, including

Hans Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (; ; 16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born Hans Peter Wilhelm Ar ...

, Ernst Barlach,

Georg Baselitz Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and Graphic arts, graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his Figurative art, figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his ...

, Joseph Beuys,

Alexander Calandrelli Alexander Emil Ludovico Calandrelli (9 May 1834 – 26 May 1903) was a German sculptor of Italian descent. Life Calandrelli was born in Berlin. His father was a gem-cutter from Rome who came to the Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom ...

, Luciano Castelli, August Gaul, Rainer Fetting, Georg Kolbe, Bernhard Heiliger,

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...

, Fritz Koenig, Käthe Kollwitz, Ingo Kühl, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Markus Lüpertz, Gerhard Marcks,

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

, Jonathan Meese, Oskar Schlemmer, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Wolf Vostell and Ben Wagin. Other items made by the foundry included medals made for the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

regime, and war memorials for the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

People

Herman Noack III won the

Admiral's Cup The Admiral's Cup is an international yachting regatta. For many years it was known as the unofficial world championship of offshore racing. The Admiral's Cup regatta was started in 1957 and was normally a biennial event (occurring in odd-number ...

in 1983, with his yacht ''Sabina''.

References

Sources

History
Bildgießerei Hermann Noack fine art foundry and production Berlin

, Bildgießerei Hermann Noack fine art foundry and production Berlin

Die Tagesspiegel, 16 August 2014

External links

* {{official, https://noack.berlin/ Foundries in Germany Manufacturing companies based in Berlin