Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Biography

Wilhelm Lehmbruck is regarded as one of the most important German sculptors of Classical Modernism. He was born in 1881 in Meiderich, now part of Duisburg, and attended the School of Applied Arts in Düsseldorf from 1895 to 1899. In 1901, he began studying sculpture under Karl Janssen at the Royal Academy of Art there. His training was initially characterised by a naturalistic and classical formal language. His encounter with the works of Auguste Rodin at the International Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1904 proved to be a major source of inspiration for him. After completing his studies in 1906, Lehmbruck moved into his first studio in Düsseldorf in 1907. In the same year, four of his works were exhibited at the Paris Salon; he also took part regularly in exhibitions in Paris in the years that followed.

In 1910, Lehmbruck moved to Paris with his wife Anita, whom he had married in 1908. The years he spent in the French capital proved decisive for the development of his distinctive sculptural language. Inspired in particular by his engagement with the work of Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol, the human figure became the focal point of his creative output. His sculptures increasingly moved away from naturalistic representation and are characterised by clearly structured bodily forms, altered and increasingly elongated proportions, and an introspective, often melancholic demeanour.

During his years in Paris, Lehmbruck also gained increasing international recognition. His works were exhibited, amongst other venues, at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, at the Berlin Secession and, in 1912, at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne. In 1913, The Kneeling Woman was presented at the Armory Show in the USA. The exhibition, which toured New York, Chicago and Boston, played a significant role in introducing European modernism to the United States. Following the outbreak of the First World War, Lehmbruck returned to Germany in 1914 and settled in Berlin. He was not called up for frontline service, but did work for a time in a field hospital in Berlin-Friedenau. During the war years, his artistic style evolved towards a more expressive, fragmentary and minimalist form of expression. At the end of 1916, the Kunsthalle Mannheim staged an extensive solo exhibition, after which Lehmbruck moved with his family to Switzerland.

In Zurich, Lehmbruck was in close contact with writers and artists, including Fritz von Unruh and Albert Ehrenstein. In early 1919, he returned to Berlin. On 24 January, he was appointed a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. Just a few weeks later, on 25 March 1919, Wilhelm Lehmbruck took his own life at the age of 38. His body of work, created in the space of only around two decades, occupies a central position within early 20th-century modern sculpture through its combination of abstracted bodily forms and psychological expression.