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Arno BrekerGerman sculptor and architect
Date of Birth: 19.07.1900
Country:  Germany |
Content:
Biography of Arno Breker
Arno Breker was a German sculptor and architect, best known for being Adolf Hitler's favorite sculptor. He was born in 1900 to Arnold Breker, a stonemason, and his wife Louise. During his school years, he learned the trade of stonemasonry in his father's workshop and later attended the Elberfeld Craft School. In 1920, he enrolled at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts, where he studied architecture under Wilhelm Kreis and sculpture under Hubert Netzer, a student of Adolf von Hildebrand.
In 1924, Breker made his first trip to Paris, which was then considered the center of modern sculpture. He completed his studies in 1925. From 1927 to 1933, he lived and worked in Paris while maintaining connections with Germany. He was greatly influenced by Aristide Maillol and Charles Despiau, who worked in the style of Auguste Rodin. During his time in Paris, he also met the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, film director Jean Renoir, and antiquarians Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Alfred Flechtheim.
In 1933, Breker received the Roman Prize from the Prussian Ministry of Culture and spent a year as a scholarship holder at the Villa Massimo in Rome. He studied the works of Michelangelo in Florence. In 1934, he settled in Berlin and created a bust and posthumous mask of the artist Max Liebermann. From 1935 to 1936, he created five reliefs for the Nordstern Insurance Company building in Berlin, which were dismantled after the war. In 1936, he participated in an art exhibition dedicated to the Berlin Olympic Games. He received a silver medal for his statues "Decathlete" and "Victor," gaining official recognition. The third statue of the cycle, "Dionysus," was installed in the Olympic Village in Döberitz.
In 1937, Breker created sculptures for the German pavilion at the World Expo in Paris and served as a member of the international jury. He married Demetra Messala, a Greek woman who had previously been a model for Maillol. From 1937, he held the position of professor at the Higher School of Visual Arts in Berlin.
In 1938, upon Hitler's request, Breker received a major state commission for the general reconstruction plans of Berlin. He completed several works for the new Reich Chancellery, including sculptures titled "Party" and "Wehrmacht." On June 23, 1940, just a day after the signing of the Armistice with France, Breker accompanied Hitler, along with architects Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler, on a short trip to conquered Paris.
In 1940, Breker became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. During an official visit to Berlin, Vyacheslav Molotov extended an invitation from Stalin for Breker to work in the Soviet Union. From 1941, he served as the vice-president of the Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts. In 1942, at the invitation of the Vichy government, he organized a major solo exhibition at the Orangerie in Paris.
In 1944, a short cultural film titled "Arno Breker - Hard Times, Strong Art" was shot at Leni Riefenstahl's studio. Alongside Georg Kolbe, Richard Scheibe, and Joseph Thorak, Breker was included by Hitler on a special "list of those endowed with divine talent," which exempted them from military service.
In 1945, with the assistance of Albert Speer, shortly before the start of the Soviet offensive on Berlin, Breker fled from his estate in Jäckelsbruch to Wemding in Bavaria. Many have seen the photograph of poet Evgeny Dolmatovsky in post-war Berlin with a bust of Hitler by Breker under his arm.
The main body of Breker's sculptures and reliefs survived the end of the war undamaged in two studios: one in Berlin-Dahlem and the other in Jäckelsbruch near Berlin. In the summer of 1945, the Berlin studio, located in the American occupation zone, was looted by American soldiers. Jäckelsbruch was in the Soviet occupation zone. According to some sources, the bronze sculptures and reliefs were taken from there to Potsdam in 1949, and their subsequent fate is still unknown. It is also uncertain what happened to the sculpture "Dionysus" in the Olympic Village, where parts of the Soviet Group of Forces in Germany were stationed after the war, as well as several sculptures displayed in the park of Hermann Göring's Karinhall estate.
The sculptures "Decathlete" and "Victor" in the Sports Forum of the Olympic Complex ended up in the British occupation zone of Berlin and remained untouched.
In Berlin, a sculpture created by Breker on the facade of the Yugoslav Embassy (now the German Society for Foreign Policy building) at Rauhstrasse 17-18 has also been preserved.
After the liberation of France, all of Breker's works exhibited at the 1942 Paris exhibition were confiscated by the new French government as "enemy property" and later sold at auction. Breker managed to repurchase them through intermediaries from Switzerland.
In 1948, he underwent denazification proceedings and, despite his privileged position in the Third Reich, was classified only as a "fellow traveler." His support for many victims of the regime, including artist Pablo Picasso and publisher Peter Suhrkamp, testified in his favor.
In 1950, Breker settled in Düsseldorf. The lack of official commissions was compensated by private orders. He created portrait busts of Konrad Adenauer (1979), Ludwig Erhard (1973), Jean Cocteau (1963), Jean Marais (1963), Salvador Dali (1975), Ernst Jünger (1982), Peter Ludwig, and Irene Ludwig (1986).
In 1960, he opened a studio in Paris.
From 1980 to 1985, the "Arno Breker Museum" was established near Cologne.
Arno Breker passed away on February 13, 1991, in Düsseldorf and was buried in the Northern Cemetery of the city.
