Waldemar Grzimek
Waldemar Grzimek ( born December 5, 1918 in Rastenburg, East Prussia; † 26 MAY 1984 West Berlin ) was a German sculptor, who worked in both the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Family
Grzimek came from an old Silesian family and was the son of the lawyer Günther Grzimek and the Emmy Jansen from Bonn. His older brother Günther was a well-known landscape architect.
In his first marriage Grzimek married on 17 September 1941 in Berlin-Schöneberg, the painter and ceramist and potter Christa von Carnap ( born August 16, 1921 in Görlitz ), daughter of Alfred von Carnap, businessman in Berlin- Wilmersdorf, and his first wife Susanne Schindler. Grzimek's first marriage ended in divorce in 1950. Christa Grzimek, born of Carnap 's second marriage was in 1953 in Berlin sculptor Fritz Cremer.
His second wife Grzimek married in 1962 Lydia Schumann ( * 1927).
From the first marriage of the daughter Sabina and Tomas son from the second marriage of the daughter Jana come. Both daughters were like the father sculptors, his son is a ceramist.
Life
Due to the occupation of his father as a member of the Prussian Landtag, the family moved to Berlin in 1925, where his father opened a new legal practice.
Waldemar Grzimek began in 1929, eleven years old, with the modeling of animals in the zoo of Berlin. There he met the sculptor Hugo Lederer, professor at the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Grzimek taught the construction of scaffolding for sculptures. In his early creative period resulted primarily animal sculptures. His first work was a bison animal. At the age of 12, he won first prize at a dog show in Berlin for his sculpture of a Skyeterrier group. Great deal of interest of the then 15 -year-old Grzimek 1933 with his sculptures at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts. On display were a rhinoceros, an American buffalo and the sketch of his father's head. The Berlin sculptor and professor Richard Scheibe even expressed interest in purchasing the private rhino plastic.
After his schooling Waldemar Grzimek 1937 joined to a stone mason at Philipp Holzmann AG, until he was admitted to the study of sculpture at Wilhelm Gerstel of the University of Fine Arts Berlin, which he finished in 1941. During military service in the Navy in 1942, he received the Prix de Rome and spent a sabbatical leave at the Villa Massimo. After the war ended in 1946 Grzimek got a teaching position at the School of Arts Hall on Giebichenstein. Then Grzimek taught from 1948 to 1951 as a professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin- Charlottenburg and 1956-1961 as Professor of Fine and Applied Arts at the Art Academy Berlin- Weissensee. Until the appointment to a professorship at the Technical University of Darmstadt in 1968, Waldemar Grzimek worked as a freelance artist in Berlin and Friedrichshafen. In 1964, his works at the documenta in Kassel III were shown in the sculpture section.
Waldemar Grzimek's grave is located in Berlin's Dahlem cemetery.
Awards
Works
Sculptural works
Grzimek left a large sculptural, of drawings, photographic and literary work. His work has been installed in galleries of East and West Berlin. In Berlin Heinrich Heine monument at Weinbergsweg (1958, second cast in 2002 in Berlin -Mitte) and the fountain on the Wittenberg Platz ( 1985) from which it is affiliated. Another Heine monument created for the Grzimek Dichterviertel Ludwigsfelde, which was unveiled in 1956. Furthermore, its large plastic tab sheet on horse strauchelndem the city cemetery in Biberach an der Riss and a bronze door, the aisle of the Monastery of Our Lady in Magdeburg (1976). His confrontation with National Socialism verbildlichte Grzimek by the design of Buchenwald bell in the bell tower of the Buchenwald concentration camp (1958) and in the form of a memorial for the Sachsenhausen concentration camp ( 1960). Under the designation study collection Grzimek collected Berlin 19th -century art. This collection has been shown in several cities.
Appears significant that the artist 1959-1960 major role in the selection of sculptures for the then emerging residence of the SED Politburo in the forest settlement ( Bernau bei Berlin) had. There are / were, besides numerous other works by renowned artists such as Cremer, Drake, Hunzinger Plietzsch, Geyer, Weidanz, Fritz Kühn, six of his works available:
- Swimmer - identical to the representation Heilbronn - location before the local indoor pool, this turning his back.
- Squatting ( Bronze removed, for repairs in 2010 ) at a pond in the garden of the house 10
- Small Standing. Margot garden of the house 15 (bronze, 2010 for repair away )
- Resting Dancers in the garden of the house 19 (bronze, 1992 stolen )
- Waitress at the shop Combine ( bronze, 1992 stolen )
- Wild boar ( sandstone, mined in 2011 ).
Bibliography (selection)
- German sculptor of the twentieth century. Life, schools, effects. Moos, Munich 1969
- German stucco sculpture. 800 to 1300. Propylaea Verlag, Berlin, 1975, ISBN 3-549-06608-2
- ( with Peter Bloch ) The classic Berlin. The Berlin school of sculpture in the nineteenth century. Propylaea Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-549-06631-7; 1994 1st - 5th edition 2005
- The forest settlement - a nonfiction book about " WANDLITZ ". FB Verlag, 2005 Basdorf
Heinrich Heine Memorial, Berlin
Heinrich Heine Memorial, Ludwigsfelde
Sculpture swimmer, Heilbronn Neckar bridge
Dancing peasant couple, at the flea market in Nuremberg