Kurt Edzard
Boxer Hans Breitensträter, 1929

Alfred Flechtheim and Kurt Edzard

Kurt Edzard began studying sculpture in 1907/08 under Hermann Volz and Wilhelm Gerstel at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe. From 1910–12 he worked in Berlin and from 1912–14 in Paris where he also attended the Académie Julian. While in Paris he became friends with Ernesto de Fiori and Hermann Haller. He fought in World War I as a private in an artillery regiment. From 1918 onwards, he worked in Berlin again and, for some of the time, shared Louis Tuaillon’s former studio with fellow sculptors Fritz Huf, Haller and de Fiori. From 1925–28 he was professor of the sculpture class at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe and, in 1927, a founding member of the ‘Badische Secession’. In 1928/29 Edzard returned to Berlin. From 1929/30–34 he worked freelance in Paris, in 1934/35 in Bremen and then in London until 1938, when he returned once again to Berlin. In 1944 his studio was bombed and a large part of his œuvre destroyed. In 1946 he was called to the chair for modelling and life drawing in the architecture faculty at the Technische Hochschule Braunschweig where he continued to work until 1961.

From the very outset Kurt Edzard was fascinated by the work of the French sculptors Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol. Ultimately he also took an intensive interest in the work of Charles Despiau. Apart from a simplification of the body, he simultaneously opened the surface structures of his sculptures and contrasted these with reduced outlines. After World War II a further trend towards abstraction can be detected in his work. Unlike many other artists Edzard was only included in Flechtheim’s gallery portfolio for a brief period. Between 1930–32, when Edzard was living and working in Paris, works by the artist were included in two Flechtheim exhibitions.