Lucien Wercollier
Lucien Wercollier ( born July 26, 1908 in Luxembourg, † April 30, 2002 in Luxembourg ) was a Luxembourgian sculptor.
Life
Lucien Wercollier was born as the son of the sculptor Jean -Baptiste Wercollier. From 1924 to 1927 he studied at the trade school in Luxembourg, then to 1933 at the Art Academy in Brussels and at the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts de Paris by Henri Bouchard. After his return, he took a teaching position at the Handwierkerschoul Luxemburg. Here he taught technical drawing and introduction to the architecture.
In 1936 he married Yvonne Schmit, with whom he had two children. A year later, he met the painter Joseph Kutter know whose work inspired him. During this time he worked on a sculpture for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris.
1941, Luxembourg was occupied by Germany, Wercollier was invited to join the Reich Chamber of Culture. After his refusal, he was imposed with an exhibition prohibition. He was a member of the Legion Letzeburger people, a resistance organization that worked against the Nazi regime. When he took part in the September 4, 1942 on nationwide general strike against the deportation, he was arrested and taken to the concentration camp Hinzert. Then he came to the camp Lublin in Poland. In June 1945 he returned to Luxembourg and resumed his work on the Handwierkerschoul again.
In 1948 he founded, together with the artists François Gillen, Victor Jungblut and Joseph Probst the group La Nouvelle Équipe, with which he wanted to take distance from the traditional art world. With Iconomaques, a group of progressive artists, Lucien Wercoll 1954 completed the final break with the traditional, representational art in favor of abstract forms of expression.
In the following years Wercollier created many works of different materials for the public space. It was not until the age of 50 he could also sell a bronze sculpture of a private collector. In 1965, he hired his teaching in order to devote himself entirely to his artistic work. His vortschreitend weak health allowed him from 1999, no longer to complete one incomplete plastic. Lucien Wercollier died on 24 April 2002 at the age of 93 years.
Work
Wercollier is considered one of the most important protagonists of contemporary art in Luxembourg. His first works were influenced by Aristide Maillol and Henri Laurens. Like many of his fellow artists of that time, gave Wercollier in the course of its development the objective presentation and turned to non-representational, abstract shape. Although most of his works are executed in bronze and marble, he used other materials such as wood, alabaster or onyx marble for his sculptures.
His works can be found in the Musée National d' Art Moderne, Paris; Musée de la Résistance Esch / Luxembourg; Musée de Metz; Miami University, Oxford / Ohio; The Israel Museum Hakyria, Jerusalem; European Court of Justice, Luxembourg; Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken; B.P. Gallery Antwerp; Museum of the city of Ostend; Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, Neumünster Abbey Luxembourg -Grund and before the Euro Europe in Strasbourg.