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Art of the 20th Century
Gerhard Marcks
Gerhard Marcks
(b Berlin, 18 Feb 1889; d Burgbrohl, nr Cologne, 13 Nov 1981).
German sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker. He first sculpted animals while studying under Richard Scheibe. After World War I his interest in classicism gave way to the influence of Expressionism and of the Sturm artists, as part of a search for a new spirituality. This new style of work can be seen in Woman Suckling (gold-plated limewood relief, 1919; Bremen, Marcks-Haus). Walter Gropius, who founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919, asked Marcks to establish a ceramics workshop for the school in the nearby village of Dornburg. With his students he set out to create a Bauhaus ceramics ethic of simplicity and honesty of design as determined by the materials used and the function of the object. In stylistic terms he combined geometry with a local pottery tradition. He was also inspired by Lyonel Feininger to make woodcuts of rural genre themes.
