67 - LOTHAR FISCHER

LOTHAR FISCHER (1933 Germersheim – 2004 Baierbrunn near Munich) Large, Slender Seated Figure in Robe II, 1988 Iron, brown rust patina. Approx. 146 x 27 x 82 cm. Copy 6/6. Signed and numbered on the reverse, in the lower part of the caudal fin. Surface partially covered with lichen due to many years of outdoor display. Catalog no.: Dornacher 1323a. Lothar Fischer was one of the most significant German sculptors after World War II and a co-founder of the artist group SPUR, which affiliated itself with the Situationist International. For over two decades, he taught as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. The human figure in its basic postures—standing, sitting, lying down—was Fischer’s subject for decades, though never as a representation. “To create is not to reproduce,” as he himself put it. He called what he created “artistic figures”: forms that emerge alongside nature and draw their power from the prehistoric image of humanity. This Seated Figure demonstrates this impressively. The upper body remains upright and compact; from the edge of the seat, the figure extends into a single, long, downward-reaching line that ends only at the bottom in two pointed feet. The head is small and compact: an oval with drilled dots for the nose and two protrusions on the sides for the ears. Reduced to posture and outline, the result is not a portrait but an idol—strange, self-contained, and powerfully evocative.