Wilhelm Lehmbruck

The German sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919) revitalized the image of the human figure in northern Europe. His particular innovation in treating the figure was his use of attenuated proportions.

Wilhelm Lehmbruck, the son of a miner, was born in Meiderich on Jan. 4, 1881. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Düsseldorf (1895-1899). When his father died in 1899, Lehmbruck worked part time as a draftsman. In 1901 he entered the master class of Karl Janssen at the Düsseldorf Academy. Lehmbruck's work of this period thematically related to the naturalist literature of Émile Zola and Gerhart Hauptmann, and he depicted the urban industrial worker.

The 1904 International Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf included many sculptures by Auguste Rodin, which had an immediate impact on Lehmbruck's work. He began to concentrate almost exclusively on the female form, executing portraits, nudes, and mother and child groups. When the government purchased his Bather (1905), Lehmbruck was able to travel to Italy. On his return the following year, he completed his education at the Düsseldorf Academy and continued to model the female form, now exploring the more fragmented image.

The major change in Lehmbruck's style came as a result of his stay in Paris (1910-1914), interrupted only by another visit to Italy in 1912. He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne (1910) and the Salon des Indépendants (1911/1912). During this period his figures began to assume their characteristic elongated proportions, best represented by the Kneeling Woman (1911) and Standing Youth (1913). But Lehmbruck did not direct his interest only to Gothic attenuations, for he simultaneously examined in greater detail the possibilities of the incomplete figure. His compositions also reveal his interest in exaggerated gesture and in kneeling, standing, and bending poses, which express his desire to transform the nude from academic artifice to relevant image.

Lehmbruck returned to Germany in 1914, and he continued to refine those artistic problems first stated in his Parisian works. The increasing interiorization of his figures and the more reflective and inward-turning poses betray his own anxiety about World War I. And while his sculpture attempts to state a more universal image of reflection, even despair, it is in Lehmbruck's drawings that one sees the greater affinities with the German expressionist painters. He committed suicide in Berlin on March 25, 1919.

Further Reading

The most recently published and thorough assessment of Lehmbruck's work is August Hoff, Wilhelm Lehmbruck: Life and Work (1961; trans. 1969). Werner Hofmann, Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1958), is the other critical work available in English. The most inclusive listing of the sculptor's work is in the catalog to the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg entitled Wilhelm Lehmbruck Sammlung (2 vols., 1964). □

Lehmbruck, Wilhelm (1881–1919). German sculptor. He was born at Duisburg, the son of a miner, and studied in nearby Düsseldorf, first at the School of Arts and Crafts, 1895–9, then at the Academy, 1901–7. His early work was in a fairly conservative academic manner, but when he was living in Paris from 1910 to 1914 he developed a more modern style, influenced by the formal simplifications of Archipenko, Brancusi, and Modigliani, although still essentially in the tradition of Rodin and Maillol. One of his most impressive works in this vein is Kneeling Woman (MOMA, New York, 1911), notable for its attenuated forms, angular pose, and melancholic expression; it was greatly praised when it was exhibited at the Cologne Sonderbund exhibition in 1912. His reputation grew substantially after this, and the first book on him was published in Berlin in 1913. In 1914 he had a one-man exhibition at the Galerie Levesque, Paris, but soon afterwards the outbreak of the First World War forced him to return to Germany. He managed to avoid conscription into the army and instead worked in a hospital, the suffering he witnessed being reflected in the poignancy of the sculpture from his final years. In 1916 he moved to Switzerland, where he planned major works, including war memorials, but made only smaller pieces and fragments. The war had brought him to a state of acute depression and he committed suicide in 1919.

Lehmbruck often worked in marble, but he was by temperament a modeller rather than a carver; he liked to work in clay over a spindly armature, and several, of his figures were cast in artificial stone to preserve the texture of the clay. With Barlach he ranks as the outstanding German Expressionist sculptor. He also made etchings and lithographs, painted, and wrote poetry. There is a museum devoted to him in his native Duisburg.

Lehmbruck, Wilhelm (b Meiderich, nr. Duisburg, 4 Jan. 1881; d Berlin, 25 Mar. 1919). German sculptor. His early work was in a fairly conservative academic manner, but when he was living in Paris from 1910 to 1914 he developed a much more personal style, influenced by the formal simplifications of Archipenko, Brancusi, and Modigliani, although still essentially in the tradition of Rodin and Maillol. It is exemplified in the extremely attenuated forms, angular pose, and melancholic expression of his Kneeling Woman (1911, MoMA, New York). On the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Germany and worked in a hospital, the suffering he witnessed being reflected in the poignancy of his last works. The war brought him to a state of acute depression and he committed suicide in 1919. Lehmbruck often used marble, but he was by temperament a modeller rather than a carver, working in clay over a spindly armature, and several of his works were cast in artificial stone to preserve the texture of the clay. With Barlach he ranks as the outstanding German Expressionist sculptor. Lehmbruck also made etchings and lithographs, painted, and wrote poetry. There is a museum dedicated to him in Duisburg.

Lehmbruck, Wilhelm (1881–1919). German sculptor. His early work was in a fairly conservative academic manner, but when he was living in Paris from 1910 to 1914 he developed a much more personal style, influenced by the formal simplifications of Archipenko, Brancusi, and Modigliani, although still essentially in the tradition of Rodin and Maillol. It is exemplified in the extremely attenuated forms, angular pose, and melancholic expression of his Kneeling Woman (1911, MoMA, New York). On the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Germany and worked in a hospital, the suffering he witnessed being reflected in the poignancy of his last works. The war brought him to a state of acute depression and he committed suicide in 1919. Lehmbruck often worked in marble, but he was by temperament a modeller rather than a carver, working in clay over a spindly armature, and several of his works were cast in artificial stone to preserve the texture of the clay. With Barlach he ranks as the outstanding German Expressionist sculptor. Lehmbruck also made etchings and lithographs, painted, and wrote poetry. There is a museum dedicated to him in his native Duisburg.

Wilhelm Lehmbruck , 1881–1919, German sculptor. He studied at Düsseldorf and went to Paris in 1910. Influenced at first by Rodin, Brancusi, and Maillol, he later arrived at his own highly individual style. His large, elongated figures express a dramatic poignancy. Woman Kneeling (Mus. of Modern Art, New York City) is generally regarded as his best work. Lehmbruck committed suicide in Berlin at the age of 38.

Bibliography: See study by W. Hofmann (1958).