Anton Grauel – Renowned German sculptor

August 14th, 2017

Awake Goy

Anton Grauel (1897–1971), born in Bad Soden near Frankfurt, came from an old artisan family from the Electorate of Hesse. In 1911, at the age of 14, Grauel began an apprenticeship as a woodcarver in Fuldau; he worked and studied engraving/ wood sculpture under Josef Steinle until 1914. Grauel went into military services from 1916 to 1919; from 1920 to 1924 he worked in several sculpture ateliers. Between 1925 and 1931 Grauel worked with Richard Scheibe at the Städel Institute of Art in Frankfurt. He made study trips to Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland.

In March 1930 Grauel’s famous War Memorial in Bad-Soden was revealed; a young man from Bad Soden stood as a model for the bronze sculpture. A year later, Grauel moved to Berlin and opened an atelier in Berlin-Südende. His expertise was stone, wood and bronze. To his circle of friends belonged Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm lehmbrück and Georg Kolbe. In 1938 Grauel completed his famous triptychon ‘Friede, Tapferkeit, Gerechtigkeit’ (‘Peace’, ‘Courage’ and ‘Justice‘) a work which was commissioned by the Reichsluftfahrtministeriums (Ministry of Aviation) and destined for the officers’ mess of an airbase. In the same year he received -for this triptych which was 2.15 meters high- the Art Prize of the City of Berlin. The triptych was also put on display at the Great German Art Exhibition in 1938. Further commissioned orders for works to be placed at airbases and other military buildings would follow. For example, in 1939 the life-size wooden sculpture of Saint Barbara, an early Christian saint and martyr often portrayed with miniature chains and a tower, perhaps best known as the patron saint of armourers, artillerymen, military engineers and miners. This sculpture was (also)commissioned by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. In addition, the 180-centimeter high basswood relief ‘Bogenschütze’ (‘Archer’) was placed at a Luftwaffe base.

Grauel participated several times in the ‘Grosse Berliner Kunstaustellung’ (i.a. 1934, 1940/ 41) and in exhibitions organized by the ‘Preussische Akademie der Kunste’ (i.a. ‘Frühjahrsausstellung’, 1942). He was also represented at the exhibition ‘Der NS.-Gemeinschaft KRAFT DURCH FREUDE’, 1938, organised in co-operation with Amt Rosenberg; at the exhibition ‘Deutsche Bildhauer der Gegenwart’, organised by the Kunstverein Hamburg in 1940; at the ‘Kunstausstellung in Berlin’, National-Galerie/Alte Nationalgalerie, 1941, and at the ‘Kunstausstellung Hilfswerk für Deutsche Bildende Kunst in der NS-Volkswohlfahrt’, 1941.

At the Great German Art Exhibitions, Grauel was represented with 20 works. The bronze ‘Sieger’ was bought by Hitler for 1,600 Reichsmarks and placed in the Neue Reichskanzlei (in the ‘Verbindungshallen im Westlichen Verwaltungsbau, Voss Strasse 6; depicted in Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich’, 1939).

Besides the triptych, well-known works were displayed, including ‘Zuneigung’ (‘Tenderness’), ‘Melodie’, ‘Kniende’ (‘Kneeling’), ‘Liebende’ (‘Lovers’), ‘Abend’ (‘Evening’) and the relief ‘Neues Leben’ (‘New Life’).

In August 1943 Grauels atelier and house in Berlin were bombed and destroyed; he moved to Bad Soden-Salmünster and somewhat later to the village of Jossa, near Frankfurt. We found in American documents of the ‘Office of Military Government for Greater Hesse’, 16 January 1947, that Anton Grauel held his first exhibition after the war in December 1946, in the Landesbibliothek of Fulda: ‘Sculptures in stone, clay and wood; drawings and photographs of war destroyed works by a distinguished worker in the Kolbe tradition’. In 1951 Grauel emigrated to the United States, where he was naturalized as a US citizen six years later. He first went to Milwaukee (Wisconsin), and later he settled in El Segundo (California). In the US Grauel again became very successful. In the past he had specialized in human figures and decorative patterns, but in the post-war US he changed his style. His works were designed to deliver a message, to show the character of and the good in mankind. Many of them had a religious theme. Grauel held exhibitions in Wisconsin (Beloit, 1951), in Milwaukee (the Art Institute of Milwaukee, 1952), in Madison, Chicago and in Philadelphia. Several sculptures by Grauel can be found in Beloit, Wisconsin: at the Beloit College, at the Beloit State Bank (the welded steel family), in front of the Beloit Catholic High School (stone work of Christ and St. Joseph), in the YWCA lobby (the sisterhood symbol), in St. Paul’s Catholic Church (the crucifix) and in the First Congregational Church (the baptismal font and relief of the flight into Egypt).

In 1964 Grauel created the well-known ‘Seat of Wisdom’…

Anton Grauel died in 1971 in El Segundo, California.