Franz Metzner (18 November 1870, Wscherau, near

Plzeň Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabitants. The city is known worldwid ...

– 24 March 1919,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

) was an influential German sculptor, particularly his sculptural figures integrated into the architecture of Central European public buildings in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austri ...

period. His style is difficult to classify.

Biography

Metzer learned the craft of stone-cutting in Breslau with Christian Behrens and did apprenticeships in Saxony through 1894. He founded his own studio in

in 1896 and worked predominantly for the royal porcelain factory until 1903, and became a professor at the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

college of arts and sciences. Metzner achieved fame by winning a gold medal at the Paris

Exposition Universelle (1900) The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

. Among his important works are the sculptures for

Josef Hoffmann Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956) was an Austrian- Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architectural work is the Stoclet Pa ...

's 1904–1911 landmark Vienna Secession

Palais Stoclet The Stoclet Palace (french: Palais Stoclet, nl, Stocletpaleis) is a mansion in Brussels, Belgium. It was designed by the Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann for the Belgian financier Adolphe Stoclet. Built between 1905 and 1911 in the Vienna Sec ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, including the eccentric four green male nudes at the summit of the building. The Palais Stoclet is an example of "Gesamtkunstwerk", the integration of art and architecture, one of the goals of

, and it had notable influence on birth of Art Deco. In 1910 Metzner met the vacationing

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

and, according to the scholarship of

Anthony Alofsin Anthony Alofsin (born June 22, 1949 in Memphis, Tennessee) is an architect, artist, art historian, writer, and professor.''Who's Who in America'' - 2012, 66th Edition (pub. 2011), Marquis Biographies on Line. http://search.marquiswhoswho.com/prof ...

, Metzer affected Wright's "conventionalization" of the human figure and its incorporation into buildings like the Larkin Building and Midway Gardens. Around the same time, Metzner's designs influenced Czech artists working in Prague, Stanislav Sucharda among them. A famous work is the 1913

Völkerschlachtdenkmal The Monument to the Battle of the Nations (german: Völkerschlachtdenkmal, sometimes shortened to ''Völki'' or ''Schlachti'') is a monument in Leipzig, Germany, to the 1813 Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations. Paid for mo ...

(People's Battle Monument), designed by the architect

Bruno Schmitz Bruno Schmitz (21 November 1858 – 27 April 1916) was a German architect best known for his monuments in the early 20th century. He worked closely with sculptors such as Emil Hundrieser, Nikolaus Geiger and Franz Metzner for integrated arc ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. Metzner executed the powerful and strangely scaled interior figural-architectural sculpture in the "Hecker Tomb" with his teacher Behrens. The Monument was inaugurated in 1913 by Kaiser Wilhelm II. It is unique and imposing combination of

Wilhelmine The Wilhelmine Period () comprises the period of German history between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the German Empire from the resignation of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck until the end of World War I and Wilhelm' ...

and Jugendstil styles. Much of Metzner's work in Germany was lost in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Other work

* Atlas figures, Zacherl House,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria, 1905,

Jože Plečnik Jože Plečnik () (23 January 1872 – 7 January 1957) was a Slovene architect who had a major impact on the modern architecture of Vienna, Prague and of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, most notably by designing the iconic Triple Bridge an ...

, architect * Tomb for the paper manufacturer Max Krause in the Jerusalem Cemetery in

, 1907,

architect * Franz Stelzhammer Monument,

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

, Germany, 1908 * sculpture for the

Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz The Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz was a cinema located at 4 Nollendorfplatz, Schöneberg, Berlin. Built in 1912–13 and designed and decorated by leading artistic practitioners of the day, it was the German capital's first purpose-built, ...

in Berlin, 1913, for architect

Oskar Kaufmann Oskar Kaufmann (2 February 1873 – 8 September 1956) was a Hungarian architect. He was an expert in construction and design and was active in Berlin beginning in 1900. Among his best-known works are the Krolloper, the Hebbel Theater and the , ...

* Der Rüdigerbrunnen (the Rudiger well) in the Bavarian city of Kaufbeuren File:Zacherlhaus wanzenburg atlant franz metzner.jpg, Atlas figures (1905), Zacherl House,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria,

, architect. File:Ruediger brunnen neugablonz.jpg, Der Rüdigerbrunnen (the Rudiger well),

Kaufbeuren Kaufbeuren (; Bavarian: ''Kaufbeiren'') is an independent town in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Swabia, Bavaria. The town is an enclave within the district of Ostallgäu. Districts Kaufbeuren consists of nine districts: * Kaufbeuren (town core ...

, Germany. File:Stelzhammer 1802-1874 C HPIM6475.jpg, Franz Stelzhammer Monument (1908),

, Germany. File:Battle Of The Nations-Monument.jpg, Voelkerschlachtdenkmal (1898-1913),

, Germany,

, architect. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1988-0929-301, Leipzig, Völkerschlachtdenkmal, Wächterfiguren.jpg, ''Wächterfiguren'' (''Guards''), encircling the dome of the

. File:Völkerschlachtdenkmal oben.jpg, Interior of the dome of the

. File:Krypta Völkerschlachtdenkmal.JPG, ''Masks of Fate'', crypt of the

References

External links

*
Entry for Franz Metzner
on the

Union List of Artist Names The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Metzner, Franz 1870 births 1919 deaths Deaths from Spanish flu German sculptors German male sculptors Architectural sculptors Art Nouveau sculptors German Bohemian people People from Plzeň-North District 20th-century sculptors Wiener Werkstätte

Biography

Other work

References

Further reading

External links