Seated Youth (1916 - 1917) by Wilhelm LehmbruckLehmbruck Museum
The German artist Wilhelm Lehmbruck was born in 1881 in the city of Duisburg. By the 1910s he was an accomplished sculptor, having attended the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, but his work as a military paramedic during the First World War charged his art with a new sense of meaning.
Mutter und Kind (Mother and Child) (1910) by Wilhelm LehmbruckNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Lehmbruck's early art was well within the boundaries of traditional Western sculpture - even if it was heavily influenced by the contemporary sculpture of the French artist Auguste Rodin. He focussed on busts, full-length nudes and Christian symbolism.
Standing female figure (1910) by Wilhelm LehmbruckKröller-Müller Museum
This Standing Female Figure of 1910 is representative of this period. In pose, proportions, and nudity, it resembles sculpture of classical Greece and Rome. Though, there is a hint of modern sexuality in the lack of fig leaf.
Head of a Woman, Lowered (1910) by Wilhelm LehmbruckKunsthalle Bremen
Inspired by Rodin, Lehmbruck experimented with producing fragments of standing figures. This bust is taken from the same sculpture shown above. Here, we can clearly see the softly-moulded features of her face. A departure from the striking personality of ancient sculpture.
Büsser (1912) by Wilhelm LehmbruckNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Between 1910-14, Lehmbruck lived in Paris, then the centre of the European art world. He frequented the Café du Dôme, where he met sculptors including Amedeo Modigliani and Constantin Brâncuși. In 1912, he exhibited with Egon Schiele at the Museum Folkwang in Germany.
Kneeling Woman (1911 - 1925) by Wilhelm LehmbruckLehmbruck Museum
This period marked the beginning of a series of major changes in his work. In 1911, he started experimenting with elongated, unnatural form. The extended head and neck, thin torso, and stylised breasts of this nude are far from the naturalistic forms of his earlier works.
Woman Kneeling (1911) by Wilhelm LehmbruckSculpture Collection, Dresden State Art Collections
This sculpture, Kneeling Girl, helped establish Lehmbruck as a leading Expressionist artist. At the time, it was compared favourably to Gothic art, whose intense religiosity was thought to be more deeply affective than the measured proportions of classical sculpture.
Bust of Kneeling Girl (1911) by Wilhelm Lehmbruck (German, 1881–1919)The Art Institute of Chicago
Again, Lehmbruck experimented with fragmenting the sculpture into parts. This bust concentrates attention on the tilted, melancholic head, the pensive face and, provocatively, the top of the naked breasts.
Three Kneeling Women (Drei Frauen knied) (1913) by Wilhelm LehmbruckNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC
By 1914, Lehmbruck had held his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie Levesque, and was a celebrated artist in both France and Germany. However, when hostilities broke out in July 1914, he was conscripted into the German army, and had to leave his beloved France.
Fallen Man (1915) by Wilhelm LehmbruckLehmbruck Museum
Lehmbruck was assigned to a military hospital in Berlin. There, in his work as a paramedic, he was indirectly exposed to the horrors of conflict: debilitating wounds, multiple amputations, and mass death.
The First World War marked a sudden shift in Lehmbruck's subjects and style. His female nudes began to be replaced by male figures, often described and depicted as fallen, shapeless forms. This sculpture, Fallen Man, was made in 1915, just months into the four year conflict.
The Dead Man (Der tote Mann) (1915) by Wilhelm LehmbruckNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC
His drawings and etchings reflect his experience, while borrowing the voluptuous style of his pre-war work. The Dead Man (1915), combines female and male nude to create a timeless image of tragedy.
Kopf eines Denkers (1918/1918) by Wilhelm LehmbruckConference of National Cultural Institutions
Lehmbruck was traumatised by his work. At the end of 1916, he and his family fled to neutral Switzerland to join other refugees, exiles, and contentious objectors - many of them artists - in Zurich, where created work critical of the war and its human cost.
Head of a Thinker was made in 1918. Its title recalls that of the famous sculpture by Rodin, but its skeletal, disarticulated form suggest this thinker may have been a soldier. It's no coincidence that around this time Lehmbruck was increasingly involved in Socialist politics.
Praying Girl (1918) by Wilhelm LehmbruckLehmbruck Museum
Following the armistice, Lehmbruck and his family returned to Berlin. In January 1919, he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, the highest honour for an artist. Despite his achievements, he suffered from inescapable depression. In March, Lehmbruck committed suicide.
The tragedy didn't end with his death. During the Nazis' rise to power, Lehmbruck's art was denounced as 'degenerate'. Some works were destroyed, thankfully many more were saved. The Lehmbruck Museum opened in 1964, and today holds the majority of his works.
