2835 - Josef Thorak (1889 Vienna – 1952 Hartmannsberg Castle)

Josef Thorak (1889 Vienna – 1952 Hartmannsberg Castle) Standing Nude Girl Bronze, with a brown patina. Signed "THORAK". The softly rounded style and the depiction of the feet on a sloping surface at the base suggest that this sculpture was likely created between the late 1920s and around 1930, when Thorak’s style was still aligned with Modernist art. Comparable works by Thorak can be found, among other places, in an article published at that time in *Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration* (Vol. 62, 1928, ill. p. 120, stone sculpture “Girl”). Thorak studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from 1910 to 1914 under Anton Hanak, Josef Müllner, and Josef Breitner, and completed his studies in Berlin, where he became a master student of Ludwig Manzel. After World War I, Thorak enjoyed his first major successes during the Weimar Republic, initially establishing a reputation with wax sculptures. Thorak exhibited extensively: in 1925–26 and 1930–31 at the Academy of Arts; in 1927, he also contributed to the Berlin Secession exhibition, of which he was a board member; and in 1928–29 and 1931 at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In addition, many articles about his art appeared in leading art journals. After 1933, however, Thorak—as Hitler’s favorite sculptor—rose to become one of the most heavily promoted and most frequently commissioned state sculptors of the “Third Reich,” alongside Arno Breker, whom he far surpassed in terms of monumentality and pathos. His personal stance and his polished style were entirely in line with official Nazi ideals, so much so that a major retrospective was dedicated to him in Berlin as early as 1935. In 1937, he designed two groups of sculptures in front of the German Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair, which Adolf Hitler praised as a “masterpiece.” He appointed Thorak to lead a master class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Further government commissions followed, including projects at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and for the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Thorak also regularly submitted works to the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich from 1937 to 1944. From 1938 to 1941, Hitler had a massive studio built for Thorak in Baldham, Upper Bavaria, capable of accommodating sculptures up to 17 meters high, based on plans by Albert Speer. H. 68 cm. Brown patinated bronze. Signed “THORAK.”