Gerhard Marcks

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Overview

Eva, 1954

Bronze
Height: 154 cm
EX.-Nr. IV
Signed and numbered
Bildgießerei Richard Barth, Rinteln
Provenance:
Estate of Gerhard Marcks
Literature:
Günter Busch (Hrsg.), Gerhard Marcks: Das plastische Werk. Mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Martina Rudloff, Frankfurt a.M.; Berlin; Wien 1977, S. 377, Nr. 621.
Marcks auf Mission. Kirche und Christliches im OEvre des Bildhauers, Bremen 2016, S. 33 (Abb., anders Exemplar)
Gerhard Marcks is one of the most important German sculptors of the 20th century. In his sculptural oeuvre, which began in 1907, works with Christian subjects are rather rare. However, in the years after the Second World War and in the course of reconstruction between 1947 and 1964, the artist created a large number of sculptures with biblical subjects as well as works for religious buildings, including the six façade figures on St Catherine's Church in Lübeck (1947-49) and the bronze portal for the Marktkirche in Hanover (1958).

Marck's bronzes with biblical subjects, such as the "Eva" from 1954, go beyond the purely Christian idea in their significance. The figures of the Old and New Testaments interested the sculptor in their symbolism, as archetypes of the human and creaturely. Originally created as a group sculpture together with the counterpart figure of "Adam" (1954, bronze, WV Rudloff 620), "Eve" becomes the embodiment of the female figure, which finds its expression in a softly rounded physique and a closed stance. In contrast, Marcks depicts the figure of "Adam", the man, with a more angular, streamlined physique and open posture. Marcks had already thematised the opposites of the sexes in a similar way in the sculpture "Man and Woman" from 1924 (bronze, WV Rudloff 109).
Anette Brunner