Leseprobe

127 1893 August Hermann Scherer is the first of four children born to the farmer Friedrich August Scherer (1858–1940) and his wife Frieda, née Sütterlin (1867–1900), on February 8, 1893 in Rümmingen, a village at the entrance of the Kandertal (Markgräflerland, Grand Duchy of Baden). 1900–1905 Death of Scherer’s mother in 1900. Scherer spends the following years largely on his own. He stands out at school on account of his talent. His skill in drawing is also noted at an early stage. 1906 Scherer’s father marries Eva Scherr on November 1. 1907 After leaving school, the fourteen-year-old Scherer begins a stonemason’s apprentice- ship with the master craftsman Schwab in Lörrach. 1910–1911 After completing his apprenticeship, Scherer moves to Basel, the prospering economic and cultural hub of northwestern Switzer- land, southern Baden and Alsace. He finds work with the sculptor Carl Gutknecht (1878–1970), who had been specialising in statuary works for buildings and fountains since the turn of the century. 1912–1913 Scherer embarks on his travelling years, which take him to Cologne and Koblenz. It is not known whether he had already devel- oped an interest in (modern) art at this time. Thus, there is no indication that Scherer vis- ited the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in 1912, which also features young artists, such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Erich Heckel (1883–1970), and Wilhelm Lehm- bruck (1881–1919) alongside pioneers of modernism (including, Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch). 1914–1917 Scherer is back in Basel before the outbreak of the First World War. During the war years, he earned his living as a day labourer working on decorative elements on numerous structures in the city. His crafts- manship secures his initial contact with sculptors. Otto Roos (1887–1945), a painter/ sculptor, trained in the style of Aristide Maillol (1861–1944), invites Scherer to col- laborate on the implementation of his stone sculptures and provides him with a modest living and place to work next to his studio on the Sennheimerstrasse. During this period, Scherer makes the acquaintance of young Basel artists who, like him, had all first learned a craft: the sculptors, painters and glass painters Albert Müller (1897–1926), Otto Staiger (1894– 1967), Louis Weber (1891–1972) and Rudolf Müller (1899–1986). Scherer embarks on his first sculptural experiments. In 1917, he makes a plaster bust of Albert Müller, to whom he remains close until 1925. In 1917, the Basel art scene was dominated by a controversy surrounding the first monumental version of Ferdinand Hodler’s (1853–1918) Blick in die Unendlichkeit ( " View into Infinity”) (Kunstmuseum Basel) shown at the Kunsthalle. Scherer, along with a number of other aspiring young artists, resolutely backs Hodler. 1918–1919 In April, the Kunsthalle Basel presents a comprehensive retrospective of Rodin’s sculptural and graphic works at the behest of the Basel sculptor, Carl Burckhardt (1878– 1923). Burckhardt installs some of Rodin’s main works ( " The Thinker”, " Balzac”, " The Shadow”, " The Walking Man”) in the spacious roof-lit hall. Carl Burckhardt – the most impor- tant Swiss sculptor of the first quarter of the twentieth century – commences work in 1918 on two stone fountain sculptures Rhein ( " Rhine”) and Wiese intended for the station concourse of the Badische Bahnhof in Basel, which was built in 1912–1913 in accordance with Karl Moser’s plans. However, as his health doesn’t permit arduous physical work, Burckhardt hires several young sculp- tors for the stone sculptures. When Louis Weber and Rudolf Müller resign from the job after only a few months, Scherer is left to complete the work on the two figures for the fountain alone. The regular income from this employment allows Scherer to rent a slightly larger studio space at No. 5 Missionsstraße. 1920 In January, conservator Wilhelm Barth (1869–1934) invites young Basel sculptors to exhibit their first works at Kunsthalle Basel. In addition to Daniel Hummel (1895– 1982) and Max Uehlinger (1894–1981), Scherer also participates in the exhibition. Totalling eleven sculptures and nine draw- ings, his submission makes him the most prominently-featured artist in terms of num- bers. Among other things, he exhibits a mar- ble version of the portrait bust of Albert Müller, a standing female figure and three reliefs. His figures, which tend toward stere- ometric forming of the body, are testimony to the influence of Carl Burckhardt’s ( " ele- mental sculptural”) style. The reliefs contain the first trace of one of the subsequent leit- motifs in Scherer’s oeuvre: the encounter between man and woman. Scherer rents a bright, spacious studio in a commercial building at No. 38 Steinen- bachgässlein. This quickly becomes the meeting place for his circle of friends, who not only stage exuberant parties there, but also discuss art and literature, religion and society, socialism and world revolution. Scherer holds a life drawing session twice a week in his new premises. In addi- tion to sculptors and painters of a similar age to Scherer, Burckhardt, fifteen years his senior, also takes part in the meetings. Scherer completes a 130 cm-high female nude and several portraits of his close friends and associates. Scherer spends the majority of his time in the drafty mason’s yard in front of the Badischer Bahnhof working on Burck- hardt’s fountain. However, during the years from 1920 and 1921 he is also extremely active politically, designing covers and pro- ducing illustrations for socialist and commu- nist magazines and publications. In August Hermann Scherer und Carl Burckhardt in der Bauhütte am Badischen Bahnhof, um 1920/21 Hermann Scherer and Carl Burckhardt in the stone masons’ yard, Badischer Bahnhof, c. 1920/21