'Grazie', 1979, bronze, brown patina, height 25,5 cm, signed in the casting, foundry stamp, numbered 73/300, partially slightly rubbed, minimal verdigris, certificate enclosed, Provenance: Galerie Richard P. Hartmann, Munich.
The German sculptor and architect Arno Breker was born in Wuppertal on 19 July 1900. In 1920 Breker began his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. His great idol was the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The artist described 1936 as a turning point in his life. The clear allusion of his sculptures to antiquity attracted the favour of the National Socialists. Suddenly Breker was receiving commissions and awards, joined the NSDAP in 1937 and was quickly celebrated as the ''Michelangelo of the Third Reich''. In 1938, for example, he was commissioned to make the bust of Adolf Hitler. The artist was highly respected not only by the National Socialists, but also by the French Vichy regime. After the end of the Second World War, Breker fled to Bavaria, where he was acquitted in the denazification process. He received numerous private commissions, portrayed many well-known industrialists such as Hugo Henkel, Herbert Quandt and Rudolf-August Oetker, as well as the politicians Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. He was also commissioned with architectural projects such as the construction of the office and residential buildings for the Gerling Group in Hagen in 1955. Despite numerous commissions, criticism also arose against the artist and his idealising aesthetics in the post-war period. Nevertheless, Breker was well-known in the international art world of the post-war period and cultivated special friendships with Salvador Dalí and Ernst Fuchs. Dalí once said of the three artists, who together were known as the ''Golden Triangle'': ''Breker-Dalí-Fuchs. You can turn us any way you like, we are always on top.'' In his work, Breker was concerned throughout his life with the human body in all its beauty. Ernst Fuchs even described him as ''the true prophet of the beautiful''. The sensual, sensuous girl nude ''Grazie'' is a particularly harmonious example of his style combining realism with idealism.
