Gerhard Marcks

Lifetime

1889–1981

Country

Germany

He was born in 1889 in Charlottenburg near Berlin. He taught himself sculpture within the circle of the Berlin Secession, taking guidance from August Gaul and Georg Kolbe; from 1908 he shared a studio with Richard Scheibe. From 1918 he taught at the Berlin State School of Arts and Crafts (Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule) under Bruno Paul. In 1917 he collaborated with Steingutfabriken Velten-Vordamm on brightly glazed animal figures intended for serial production, and modelled porcelain animals for Schwarzburger Werkstätten für Porzellankunst in Unterweißbach.

In 1919 he became one of the first Bauhaus masters in Weimar, where he taught until 1924. From 1920, as master of form, he ran the ceramics workshop in Dornburg on the Saale, working with master craftsman Max Krehan and, among others, Otto Lindig and Marguerite Friedlaender; after the school moved to Dessau, the workshop was not continued. In 1926–1927 he developed a new form of the Sintrax vacuum coffee maker for Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen., which went into production at the beginning of 1927.

From 15 September 1925 he led the sculpture class at the Burg Giebichenstein school in Halle, and in 1928 took over as its director. In 1933 he was dismissed for advocating the retention of teachers of Jewish origin at the school. In 1937 his works were shown at the Munich exhibition “degenerate art”, and 24 works were confiscated and destroyed.

After the war he taught at Landeskunstschule in Hamburg, and from 1950 worked as an independent artist in Cologne. Works created during this period included The Bremen Town Musicians (1953), Albert the Great for the University of Cologne (1956) and a monument to Mozart in Frankfurt am Main (1963); he also designed the reverse of the medals awarded to winners of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 1952 he received the Pour le Mérite order. Since 1971, his legacy has been cared for by Gerhard-Marcks-Haus in Bremen. He died in 1981 in Burgbrohl.