Richard Scheibe, Der Denker

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				Price: on request

Description

‘Der Denker’ (‘The Thinker’)
Biography: Richard Scheibe

Bronze. Height 95 cm, excluding marble base 88 cm.
Created 1937.

Left: a similar cast of ‘Der Denker’ (also 88 cm high) is displayed in the permanent exhibition of Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle. Photo: December 2017. Notice that the shape of the base of these three casts is different than the base of the life-size casts below.
Middle: ‘Der Denker’ depicted in ‘die Kunst für alle’, 1937/38.
Right: ‘Der Denker’ depicted in ‘Richard Scheibe, -Ein Deutscher Bildhauer’, Rembrandt Verlag 1939. Described as ‘Bronze. 1937. Height 1 meter’.
     

Casts of ‘Der Denker’ by Richard Scheibe
According to ‘Magdalena George, Der Bildhauer Richard Scheibe‘, Dissertation Leipzig 1961 (unpublished), the  following casts of Der denker were made:
– 1937: casts of 1 meter (likely 88 cm high + base). Two casts are known to exist;
– 1938: two casts were made of 197 respectively 200 cm;
– 1949: three casts were made of 65 cm high;
– 1953: one cast of 50 cm high was made.
The casts of 1937 were displayed at an exhibition by ‘Galerie Buchholz’, Berlin, in 1938, and at the exhibition ‘Richard Scheibe’, by the ‘Leipziger Kunstverein’, 1939.
A cast of ‘Der Denker’ with both arms hanging down, was displayed at the ‘Ausstellung Deutsche Plastik der Gegenwart‘, 1942, Zagreb (depicted in the exhibition catalog, ‘Besitzer: Städtische Kunsthalle, Hamburg’).

Discovery of 4 Third Reich-sculptures in Berlin, November 2016
In November 2016, German Art Gallery discovered 4 life size Third Reich-sculptures in the garden of the headquarters of the Ministery Finance, Wilhelmstrasse 97, Berlin. The bronzes were incorrectly described and/or described as ‘work by unidentified artist’ in the files of the German Bundesfinanzminsterium.
On initiative of German Art Gallery, Bild Newspaper published at 2 November 2016 the discovery of the sculptures, -by Joseph Wackerle, Richard Scheibe, Hermann Joachim Pagels and Heinrich Faltermeier.  ‘Jüngling, Erde’ by Joseph Wackerle, comes from the Old Chancellery. The other three sculptures could come from the New Chancellery, but there is no hard evidence for that. They were definitely bought by Hitler at the GDK-1938, but they are not on the so-called ‘144-List’ of the 1938-New Chancellery purchases (the list, not exhaustive, is in our possession).
For more details, please check: Newsletter, November 2016

Left: Richard Scheibe, artprint, ‘Der Denker’ (‘The Thinker’), 1937/38. Bronze, height 2 meters. GDK 1938, room 2. Bought by Hitler for 10.000 RM. Depicted in ‘Richard Scheibe, -Ein Deutscher Bildhauer’, Rembrandt Verlag 1939.
Middle: ‘Der Denker’ by Richard Scheibe, November 2016. Found back by German Art Gallery in the garden of the headquarters of the Ministery Finance, Wilhelmstrasse 97, Berlin. It was incorrectly discribed in the files of the German Bundesfinanzminsterium as ‘Javelin-thrower, -speer missing’. Height 2 meters.
Published by Bild Newspaper on 2 November 2016.
Right: ‘Der Denker’ by Scheibe, depicted on a postcard.
     

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