19 Facts About Ernst Barlach

Ernst Heinrich Barlach was a German expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker and writer.

When his father died, early in 1884, the family returned to Schonberg, where Ernst Barlach attended secondary school.

Ernst Barlach studied from 1888 to 1891 at the Gewerbeschule Hamburg.

Ernst Barlach created his first major sculpture during this time, Die Krautpfluckerin.

Ernst Barlach continued his studies for one more year in Paris at the Academie Julian, from 1895 to 1897, but remained critical of the German tendency to copy the style of French artists.

Also during his travels in Russia his son Nikolaus was born on 20 August 1906, starting a two-year fight with the mother, Rosa Schwab, for the custody of the child, which Ernst Barlach was finally granted.

Ernst Barlach worked for the German journal Simplicissimus, and started to produce some literature.

Ernst Barlach spent ten months in Florence, Italy in 1909 and afterwards settled in 1910 in Gustrow in Mecklenburg, where he spent the rest of his life.

Ernst Barlach's awaited new artistic age came for him when he volunteered to join the war between 1915 and 1916 as an infantry soldier.

Ernst Barlach rejected a number of honorary degrees and teaching positions.

Ernst Barlach received the Kleist Prize for drama in 1924 for his Die Sundflut, in which he projects his personal mysticism onto the story of Noah and the Ark.

From 1928 onward Ernst Barlach generated many anti-war sculptures based on his experiences in the war.

Ernst Barlach created a sculpture with three German soldiers, a fresh recruit, a young officer and an old reservist, standing in a cemetery, all bearing marks of the horror, pain and desperation of the war, flanked by a mourning war widow covering her face in despair, a skeleton wearing a German army helmet, and a civilian with his eyes closed and blocking his ears in terror.

Friends of Ernst Barlach were able to hide the sculpture until after the war, when it was returned to the Magdeburg Cathedral.

In 1931 Ernst Barlach started to live with Marga Bohmer, whereas her ex-husband and Ernst Barlach's friend Bernhard Bohmer lived with his new wife Hella.

In 1936, Ernst Barlach's works were confiscated during an exhibition together with the works of Kathe Kollwitz and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and the majority of his remaining works were confiscated as "degenerate art", for example the Gustrower Ehrenmal and the Hamburger Ehrenmal.

Ernst Barlach himself was prohibited from working as a sculptor, and his membership in the art academies was canceled.

Ernst Barlach died in Rostock in 1938, and is buried in the cemetery of Ratzeburg.

On 2 May 2012, Ernst Barlach's carved wood sculpture Weinende Frau sold at Christie's for $938,500, setting a new world auction record for a price paid for Ernst Barlach's work.