Grisha Bruskin

Birth of a Hero

1988

This is a mid 20th century mod abstract large bronze sculpture by Wolfgang Behl (German/American, 1918-1994). The sculptural group titled "The Family" features a mother and father with two children. Numbered 20/20. Signed. 21" H x 10 1/4" x 10 1/4 Wolfgang (Johann Wolfgang) Behl (1918 - 1994) was active/lived in Connecticut, Illinois / Germany. Known for Sculpture and as an architectural carver. A carver,designer, and teacher, Wolfgang Behl was born in Berlin, Germany where he studied at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. His teacher was otto Hitzberger, sculptor and architecture carver. I have seen some his work, particularly in carved wood compared to Constantin Brancusi although this one seems way more reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti. In 1939, Behl came to the United States and taught briefly in Pennsylvania at the Perkiomen School and in Rhode Island at the Rhode Island School of Design. There in 1943, he won the Joseph N. Eisendrath prize for sculpture. He also became a friend of Louis Mayer, sculptor from Milwaukee. In 1944, Behl took a job as Art Director at the Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois, and he also began a one-year teaching assignment at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. The last years of his life until his death were in Hartford, Connecticut. Source: Peter C. Merrill, "German-Immigrant Artists in Early Milwaukee" Originally from Berlin, Germany, Mr. Behl immigrated to the United States in 1939 and became a citizen in 1947. He studied with Waldemar Raemisch at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, and later at the Rhode Island School of Design. He began teaching at the Hartford Art School in 1955, retiring in 1983 to devote his time to sculpting. Mr. Behl had exhibitions throughout the United States and Germany. Some of his solo exhibitions include the Arts Exclusive in Simsbury from 1976 to 1981, and the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York City from 1950 to 1973. He showed at the New Britain Museum of American Art, in New Britain, Connecticut in 1969. He also had several retrospectives, including one at the Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center in West Hartford until the end of this month. His works in bronze have a German Expressionist quality to them a pathos found in the works of Kathe Kollwitz and the Expressionist movement. He was known for his classically inspired, but often surrealist sculpture. Among his most-well known pieces are a series of sculptures done for the University of Connecticut Health Center. Several examples of Behl’s work are found on the campus of the University of Hartford. He was included in the show Monumentality in Modern Sculpture at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, 1957. Artists featured in the exhibition: Kenneth Armitage, Hans Arp, Ernst Barlach, Wolfgang Behl, Dorothy Dehner, Edgar Degas, José de Rivera, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Joseph Glasco, Julio González, Paul Granlund...

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PROVENANCE Herbert A. Cahn (1915-2002), Kunst der Antike, Basel, 1988 Private Collection, Paris