"Taking Positions: Figurative Sculpture and the Third Reich" at the Henry Moore Institute - Leeds - Arno Breker and other sculptors in exhibition - Brief Article

This show of bronzes by Arno Breker and nine of his contemporaries, curated by Penelope Curtis, filled a significant gap in the history of 20th-century art and provided a rare opportunity to assess the merits of this maligned German period. Breker stole the show. While many people are familiar with his name, few have actually viewed any work executed by Adolf Hitler's favorite sculptor during the 1930s and '40s; his diminished reputation is now solely based on black-and-white reproductions. He turned out to be a four-star, albeit conservative, talent, as gifted in his field as filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was in hers. (Unlike his sculpture, her documentaries remain highly regarded and enjoy wide circulation.)

Curtis divided the show into three parts and installed each in its own space. "The Seated Man," comprising work from 1918 to 1948, featured four German sculptors active during those years: Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Breker, Gerhard Marcks and Georg Kolbe. With only four well-chosen figures from 1935 to 1939, the section devoted to "The Standing Male" succinctly reviewed aspects of the Aryan ideal. And in the back room, "The Standing Woman," as conceived in the years 1924-40, included four artists--Karl Albiker, the Roman-born Ernesto de Fiori, Ludwig Kasper and Fritz Klimsch--who might not be known even to specialists and whose vision had a decidedly lackluster quality.

Most of the standing figures recalled sculpture being executed in France at that time by Maillol and Despiau, although the German works were more traditional, with less modernist stylization. In terms of contours, a few had a whiff of oeuvre de Rodin. While the form language mostly adhered to the standards of Classical Greek figures, the subject matter was decidedly contemporary. One woman athlete by Kasper even wore a bathing cap.

The three Brekers were literally head and shoulders above the rest. Superbly modeled and convincing in character, each projected a distinct emotional life. Serious and grave, they seemed worlds apart from the art of Breker's friend and roommate in 1920s Paris, Alexander Calder, but not from Calder's father, the academic monument maker Alexander Stirling Calder. Most moving was the nude Wounded Man (ca. 1942), more Hellenistic athlete than soldier and as powerful and assertive in its own way as Richard Serra's looming steel geometries.

Richly annotated and illustrated, the catalogue for "Taking Positions" now joins the one for "German Expressionist Sculpture," a 1983 exhibition organized by Stephanie Barron, as an indispensable reference for the who was who and what was what of a time when art and world events plainly moved in tandem.

["Taking Positions: Figurative Sculpture and the Third Reich" was seen at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, May 26-Aug. 26, 2001; Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin, Oct. 7, 2001-Jan. 6, 2002; and Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen, Jan. 20-Apr. 21, 2002.]

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group