Arno Breker

ARNO BREKER (Elberfeld, Germany, 1900-Düsseldorf, 1991).
"Bust of Paul Morand".
Bronze.
Signed.
Measurements: 37 x 2 x 24 cm; (15 cm. height pedestal).
Arno Breker entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf in 1920, and in 1927 he moved to Paris, where he became familiar with the works of Rodin and Charles Despiau. In 1931 he went to Rome. During a trip to Florence he saw Michelangelo's David, which meant for him "like a cosmic call, like an order, pure occultism" to dedicate himself to a realistic and harmonious sculpture. In 1936, on the occasion of the Berlin Olympic Games, he received the commission for three statues for the stadium. In 1938, he received the commission for two monumental statues for the entrance of the New Chancellery, which would mark the destiny of his work. A week later, when he presented the project for The Torchbearer and The Swordbearer, Adolf Hitler was won over by the designs, which marked the beginning of the most fruitful period of Breker's career as he became the official sculptor of the regime. Until 1945, he sculpted for squares and avenues in the capital of the Third Reich. However, during World War II, not even a quarter of his works were spared from enemy bombardment and vandalism by the invading troops. After World War II, Breker continued to devote himself to both architecture and sculpture, as shown by the building in Cologne for an insurance company in 1955, or the equestrian statue of Mohammed V, King of Morocco. Some well-known faces portrayed by this sculptor are Salvador Dalí, Ezra Pound, the athlete Ulrike Meyfarth and Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.