Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919) was already a recognised artist when he made Ascending Youth (1913/14). He had already enjoyed success in Paris and his work also featured in the legendary Armory Show in New York in 1913. Nevertheless, the 'big lad' as Lehmbruck referred to his Ascending Youth, was rejected by other colleagues, such as Ernst Barlach, as "unsculptural" and so the work wasn't actually exhibited until 1916. The elongated, thin, almost emaciated limbs of the youth, which were the object of so much rejection, had already made an appearance in previous works, such as the Kneeling Woman (1911) and the Rapt Woman (Large) (1913) - ironically dubbed by contemporary art criticism as "jointed dolls". It is precisely the elongated proportions of the bodies that account for the fact that Lehmbruck's free-standing sculptures transcend pure representationality. Rather than aim for a naturalistic visualisation of the human body, Lehmbruck was more interested in creating an expression of the human spirit. According to the great Lehmbruck admirer, Joseph Beuys, Lehmbruck not only captured physicality but also a spiritual quality in his work. This quest to fuse the palpably physical aspect of form with the spiritual is also apparent in Lehmbruck's approach to his material: for example, he experimented with different materials; there are variations of his figures in bronze, plaster, terracotta and cast stone (cement); the matt or reflective surface structure, and the colour palette that influence the respective spatial context: for Lehmbruck, the deployed material is not merely a functional appurtenance of the work itself, but is integral to the expressive component of his sculptures by virtue of his deep immersion in the specific material being used. This in-depth preoccupation with his materials is also indicative of the great importance Lehmbruck ascribed to craftsmanship. He hardly ever considered his works to be finished, indeed, he even continued working on sculptures that had already been exhibited. In the nine years during which he created the main body of his oeuvre before he took his own life, he made a total of between thirty and forty figures, a relatively low number that can be attributed to his painstaking, contemplative and considered methodology. Following his early death, Lehmbruck's estate took the decision to sanction further casts - common practice in sculpture. The casting in plaster of the Ascending Youth, which now forms part of our collection, was done posthumously. Lembruck's figures - in particular the Ascending Youth - are a direct expression of his profound doubts and misgivings about the disposition of contemporary man. For although he exhibits a bold physical presence and an imposing size, the Ascending Youth is not an heroic figure, but a searcher who does indeed want to transcend his station but who remains rapt in thought: his gaze is inward, his head bowed. Whenever his figures are not situated in a narrative context and have no specific reference to social reality, Lehmbruck's work, in its reduced focus on the essence of humanity, bears important testimony - both art-historically and philosophically - to the salient issues that absorbed people's minds at the start of the twentieth century and, indeed, still obtain to this day: what does humanity mean to us, how can one give expression to a timeless and culturally-transcendent validity and meaning of humanity - in an era in which the disjuncture between man and his environment shapes the debate in myriad ways. (Text: Lisa Bauer-Zhao)