3702 - Gustav Seitz, Bust of a Korean Woman

Gustav Seitz, Bust of a Korean Woman probably based on sketches made during an official visit to China in 1951 by a German delegation of artists and cultural representatives, in which Gustav Seitz took part; unsigned and unmarked; cast in Böttger stoneware, depicting the head of a girl with short hair and Asian features, in the smooth stylistic language typical of Seitz’s work in the 1950s; a hairline crack on the inside; H 27 cm. Source: B. Heise, *Gustav Seitz - 50 Heads*, Gustav Seitz Foundation 2013, illustrated several times therein, e.g. on the cover. Artist’s biography: German sculptor and draughtsman (1906 Mannheim-Neckarau - 1969 Hamburg), 1920-22 apprentice in his father’s stucco-work business; 1922-24 apprenticeship as a stonemason and stone sculptor with August Dursy in Ludwigshafen; 1924-25 studied at the Landeskunstschule in Karlsruhe; 1925-32: attended the United State Schools of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin, 1933-38: worked in Hugo Lederer’s studio at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin; study trips took him to Denmark and Paris; in 1943, he was represented with nine works at the ‘Young Art in the German Reich’ exhibition in Vienna, 1940-45: served as a driver and clerk during the Second World War, followed by captivity as a prisoner of war in the United States; 1947: appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Berlin-Charlottenburg University of Fine Arts; 1949: awarded the GDR National Prize, Third Class; in 1950, he was a founding member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin; from 1951, he headed the Master’s Studio for Sculpture at the Academy of Arts; he travelled to China; in 1952, he travelled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, 1958: Resigned from the Academy of Arts of the GDR; from 1958: Professor at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg; from 1960: Member of the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg, 1959 and 1964: took part in the documenta in Kassel; 1968: took part in the Venice Biennale; Source: Wikipedia.