| Revision as of 04:39, 13 July 2012 editPolisher of Cobwebs (talk | contribs)29,147 editsm formatting← Previous edit | Revision as of 11:43, 10 October 2012 edit undoWaacstats (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers1,348,587 editsm PersondataNext edit → | ||
| Line 32: | Line 32: | ||
| | NAME = Thorak, Josef | | NAME = Thorak, Josef | ||
| | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | ||
| | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Austrian sculptor | ||
| | DATE OF BIRTH = 1889 | | DATE OF BIRTH = 1889 | ||
| | PLACE OF BIRTH = | | PLACE OF BIRTH = | ||
Revision as of 11:43, 10 October 2012
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Josef Thorak" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Josef Thorak (7 February 1889, Salzburg, Austria; 26 February 1952, Hartmannsberg, Bavaria) was an Austrian-German sculptor.
In 1922, Thorak's reputation increased when he created Der sterbende Krieger, a statue in memory to the dead of World War I of Stolpmünde.
In 1933 and in following years, Thorak joined Arno Breker as one of the two "official sculptors" of the Third Reich. In his government-issued studio outside Munich, Thorak worked on statues intended to represent the folk-life of Germany under Nazi coordination; these works tended to be heroic in scale, up to 65 feet (20 meters) in height. His official works from this period included a number of sculptures at the Berlin Olympic Stadium of 1936.
He was well known for his "gargantuan monuments" and once when a visitor to Thorak's studio asked an assistant where the sculptor was, he received the reply, "Up in the left ear of the horse."
Albert Speer referred to Thorak as "more or less "my" sculptor, who frequently designed statues and reliefs for my buildings" and "who created the group of figures for the German pavilion at the Paris World's Fair. His Comradeship stood outside the pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.
Because of his preference for muscular neo-classical nude sculpture, Thorak was known among some as "Professor Thorax". Some expressionist influences can be noticed in his neoclassical style.
See also
Notes
- "Art: Bigger Than Life"
- Rhodes, Anthony, ‘’Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion: World War II’’ Chelsea House Publishers, New York, 1976 , p. 28
- Speer, Albert, Spandau: the Secret Diaries’’, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. New York, 1976, p. 261
- Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p260 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
External links
Media related to Josef Thorak at Wikimedia Commons
 | This article about an Austrian sculptor is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
 | This article about a German artist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |