Gerhard Marcks (1889 Berlin - 1981 Burgbrohl/Eifel) "Striding youth". Original title Bronze, patinated, 1960, signed ("Phönix" artist's signet). Cast by Barth, Berlin. Wvz. Rudloff 735, one of three known examples, Rudloff only lists this "Guß I Kunsthandel"; two further casts are in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (inv. no. Pl.O. 3122) and in the sculpture garden of the Bürgerschaft in Bremen. Marcks was significantly influenced in his work by the Archaic period (ca. 700 to 500 BC). In the larger-than-life, 201 cm high sculpture "Schreitender Jüngling", Marcks also consciously drew on the ancient Kuroi of Greek archaic sculpture - nude statues of young men as the first large Greek sculptures. Since his first trip to Greece in 1928, which took him via Munich, he described himself as an "unconditional admirer of Greece". On this trip, in addition to the Kuroi in the National Museum of Athens, he also studied the two well-known examples in the Munich Glyptothek. Their formally tightly stylised figures, with their strict structure and very light pacing, also corresponded to his own ideas of the tectonics of a figure. Marcks had already created the bronze statue "Ver Sacrum" inspired by the Kuroi in 1943 (Wvz. Rudloff 427). The impressions of 1928 were refreshed by a four-week trip to Greece in the autumn of 1959, and in the following year, 1960, he also realised the larger-than-life format of the Kuroi in the "Striding Youth". Marcks is one of the most important German sculptors of modernism to work figuratively. His depictions, condensed to the essentials of form and expression, never show people heroically or pathetically; instead, they reflect general moods in a timeless manner, sometimes even a certain behavioural attitude. From 1919-1924/25, Marcks worked as a Bauhaus master and managed the Bauhaus pottery in Dornburg/Saale; from 1925-1933, he taught and worked at the Burg Giebichenstein art school in Halle/Saale. During the "Third Reich", Marcks was one of the artists predominantly criticised by the National Socialists; 86 works were confiscated in 1937 and some were defamed in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition. In 1945 Marcks was appointed to the Landeskunstschule Hamburg, from 1950 he worked as a freelance artist in Cologne and in 1955 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1971 the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus opened in Bremen. H. 201 cm. Exhibitions and literature (in selection): Kiel 1962 (Kunsthalle), "Deutsche Plastik der Gegenwart", cat. no. 54; Berlin 1963 (Akademie der Künste), "Rückblick und Gegenwart", cat. no. 316 (with illus.); Gerhard Marcks"; Günther Busch (ed.): "Gerhard Marcks. Das plastische Werk", ed. by Martina Rudloff, Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna 1977, no. 735. Patinated bronze, 1960. signed. Cast by Barth, Berlin. Catalogue raisonné no. 735. One of three known casts.