19.09.2023

Photo album of works by Ernst Seger works to mark his 155th birth anniversary

Today, the 155th birth jubilee of Ernst Seger, thematic album with photographs of his works stored in the museum Collection in the section "Western European Sculpture" is posted in the museum Photo Gallery.

Ernst Seger was born in Lower Silesia. After graduating from high school in 1884, he entered the School of Art in Breslau, where he studied until 1886. He studied under the sculptor Robert Härtel that taught lessons at the State Academy of Applied and Decorative Arts in Breslau. Then Seger followed on with his studies in Paris. From the late 1880s, he was working on orders and fulfilled large orders for urban monuments. The sculptor worked in the studio-workshop of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau under the tutelage of Christian Behrens, a German sculptor and ornamental relief artisan. After working in the workshop of Auguste Rodin in Paris from 1893 to 1894, Seger headed his own workshop, which he established in Berlin. At the turn of the centuries, the Art Deco style sculptures of elegant female dancers and nudes became very popular. By the end of 1894, Ernst Seeger returned to Berlin, where he created memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm.

During the Third Reich, Ernst Seeger was commissioned to make numerous busts of Hitler; in 1933, one of these was installed in the hall of honour at the International Radio Exhibition in Berlin. In 1935, the prominent American businessperson William Randolph Hearst bought the work by Seger – “Ganymede”.

Despite the popularity of Seger and his international fame, the two-meter-high bas-relief “Am Ziel” (At the Destination), which was erected at on the outskirts the Wannsee in Berlin in 1934, was melted down in 1940, as bronze was needed for the armament industry.

Ernst Seeger was the author of monuments in Berlin, Wroclaw, Nysa, Kłodzko and Świdnica and small-size sculptures in bronze and marble. Many of his works were destroyed during the Second World War. Among the undamaged are allegorical sculptures "Battle” and "Victory", which now adorn the fountain in John Paul II Square of Wroclaw. Ernst Seeger died in August 1939 in Berlin. The bas-relief that he created, “Der Bildhouwer und sein Gedanken” (The sculptor and his thoughts) is mounted on his grave.

On the cover: “Curtsey”. Ernst Seger, Robert Ksionsek & Co. Germany, Berlin. Late 19th century