Wilhelm Krieger (1877-1945) The Doe Around 1920

The DOE. Circa 1920.

Good quality bronze model of a doe, probably cast around 1970. Animal standing, looking forward, picking up scent, tense, dynamic posture characterized only by the position of the hind legs. Signed Krieger on the terrace. A beautiful, almost transparent golden brown patina.

Wilhelm Krieger (1877-1945)

Wilhelm Krieger was the son of the painter Eduard Theodor Krieger. He was born on the East Frisian island of Norderney in the North Sea. He soon left the island and lived as a student with relatives in Norden where he attended the gymnasium. However, he spent most of his life in Munich and the neighboring town of Herrsching am Ammersee. He left Norden without completing his studies and began a three-year apprenticeship as a decorative painter in Bremen. He left for Munich in 1896 without having completed this apprenticeship. There he enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeschule 1896/1897, but left this school after one semester. He took up painting again and became a member of the Vereinigte Werkstätten München (a movement similar to that of arts and crafts in Great Britain and the Vienna Secession). From 1901, Krieger learned to sculpt and became familiar with bronze casting and the art of patination. Two years later he became a partner in the company Zierhut & Krieger in Munich, which supplied arts and crafts items such as tableware and jewelry. He began to devote himself to animal sculpture and began working freelance for the Keramische Werkstätten in Herrsching, where he later met his future wife, Emilie Butters, who was a ceramist and drawing teacher. In 1907 he became a member of the Munich Secession. This allowed him to present sculptures in exhibitions organized by the Munich Secession. This also allowed him to exhibit his works in the following years in Berlin, Bremen, Dresden, Düsseldorf and London. In 1912, Krieger married Emilie Butters, who was then artistic director of the painting department of the Herrsching ceramic workshops. The couple had five children. In 1927, Wilhelm Krieger received the honorary title of professor from the Bavarian Ministry of Culture. Wilhelm Krieger's first solo exhibition took place in 1934 at the Städtische Galerie in Nuremberg and was praised by contemporaries.
From 1937 to 1944, Krieger participated in the major annual exhibition of German art at the Haus der Kunst, organized in Munich at the instigation of Adolf Hitler. The Haus der Kunst was to present what the National Socialists considered "true" German art. However, there is nothing “National Socialist” about Krieger’s art. Krieger, hearing impaired since childhood, relied on the power of his pictorial abilities. It was not speech or writing, but sculpture that allowed him to express himself. As a child, Wilhelm Krieger was very attached to the animals of his homeland, which he encountered during his daily walks. His sculptures mainly show mammals originating from Germany and often birds: owls, ducks, jackdaws, roosters, hawks, buzzards, eagles, condors, cranes and marabouts populated his workshop, alongside other domestic animals such as cats, dogs, deer and sometimes monkeys. Krieger's contemporaries already praised his sculptures for their pure form and admired his ability to strongly stylize animals while capturing their naturalism. Krieger, a self-taught sculptor, has created highly individual works of art that reflect his unique personal vision. He was interested in modeling animals without loading them with any symbolic meaning. Krieger did not study or be influenced by other animal sculptors. Through stylization and simplification, Krieger created very lively sculptures which, although very different, sometimes have, because of their softness, smoothness and austerity, an intensity somewhat similar to that of the work of the French sculptor François Pompon. Krieger's oeuvre includes around 200 animal sculptures. His sculptures were cast in bronze. He also carved in limestone or marble. His work was very popular and was also issued in porcelain and stoneware by notable companies such as Hutschenreuther, Rosenthal and several other important porcelain manufactories. Unlike the porcelain sculptures, which were mass-produced by model makers in porcelain factories far from the artist, it is the bronzes that display Krieger's great craftsmanship and skill. He did not miss the opportunity to chisel the surfaces of the bronzes himself, to give the sculptures the final touch and the color of the surface. Experts praise the unusual, warm color, as well as the finely detailed and elaborate surface treatment of Krieger's works. Krieger's works have already found their place in major museums and collections, and Wilhelm Krieger will certainly also receive in the near future the place he deserves in the ranks of great German animal sculptors such as August Gaul, Fritz Behn.