Lot 393: Ewel, Gerd 1914 Berlin - 1992 Frankfurt/Main Vitalia.

Ewel, Gerd
1914 Berlin - 1992 Frankfurt/Main

Vitalia. Circa 1962 (conception). Bronze, patinated brown. 53 x 16,5 x 12,5cm. Presumably one of an edition of 12. The plinth monogrammed 'E'.

Cat.rais. Schlüter, No.55, with fig.

Gerd Ewel, born in Berlin in 1914, is among a generation of figural-objective sculptors
in post-war Germany. He was, due to the turmoil of WWII and the growing interest in abstract art, forgotten for a long time. After he had finished his studies at the Charlottenburg art school "DER WEG" (under Haffenrichter, Kellerer, Lehmann, and Jaenisch) and his apprenticeship in advertising graphic art, Ewel's artistic education was abruptly stopped by WWII and the related military service. His Berlin studio and with it, most of his early work were destroyed in 1945. Despite insecurity, numerous, partly politically indicated moves, and the low appreciation of objective art, Ewel stayed true to his artistic approach and created a considerable homogenic, stilistically consequent oeuvre.
"His subject is the human being. Only rarely are animals featured. Young people stand, stride, sit, crouch, or recline in his work. Everything is slown down. There is no trace of rudiment of ecstasy, dramatic escalation, tensed contortion, as it would be typical for the artist's language of the young objective sculptors. There is no shrinkage of the torso either. Gerd Ewel is inclined to perfect his subject. Doing so he obviously follows masters such as Maillol or Blumenthal, and also Marcks. In this respect one might call him a classicist, yet a contemporary one. His figures move and appear to be concentrating with their arms crossed behind or above their heads, pressing their legs together, swinging their hips, or standing frontwards as if anatomically exact. Any physical movement, which would surpass that principle, would create additional gestures and remain an allusion, or a suggestion. The expression of his works is of a spiritual, psychological kind.
Trains of thought are projected on the figures without incidentally being limited to
pondering, dreaming, or watching. This was typical for those artists, who first refered to the human body, and only second addressed its core.
Ewel directly aims at visualisation of the spiritual existence of humanness. In this respect he leans toward abstraction, which, on the surface is clearly in accordance with stylisation. And yet there is so much sensitivity, that the figures do not appear to be frozen. Spirituality is engulfed by material existence and gives it immediate presence." (Cited and translated from Horst Richter, In: Die Weltkunst, issue 22, 15 November 1967).