Encke, Eberhard (1881-1936), Female Javelin Thrower, 1932
Eberhard Encke(1881 Berlin - 1936 Bad Nauheim), Female J avelin Thrower , 1932. Brown patinated bronze on a cast rectangular base. 30 cm (total height) x 32 cm (length with javelin) x 8 cm (depth), weight 2.7 kg. Signed “ENCKE” under the base and dated “1932”, with the foundry mark “Lauchhammer Bildguss” on the plinth below.
- Minimally rubbed, overall in excellent condition for its age
- Dynamic beauty -
The athlete has increased her run-up to sprint and will throw the javelin skywards in the next moment. Her left arm indicates the direction of flight, while her outstretched right arm safely guides the javelin. The waving hair, the mouth open from heavy breathing and the slight torsional movement of the upper body indicate that the throw is imminent.
While, following ancient sculpture, beauty was an expression of the body at rest, standing in contrapposto, which was still decisive for the Berlin school of sculpture into the Wilhelmine period, the popular sports movement and the reopening of the Olympic Games in 1896 led to the rediscovery of the beauty of the moving body. The powerful gracefulness of the javelin thrower is revealed precisely in her will-driven, purposeful and extremely concentrated physical peak performance. Every part of her body, imbued with the impulse to move, proclaims her beauty, while the skin-tight jersey reveals more than it conceals, lending the beauty an erotic element.
Looking at her posture, the outstretched arms form a parallel line to the spear, which is repeated by the back leg and echoed in the flowing hair. Together with the upper body, the bent leg forms a zigzag shape that complements the parallels, creating a highly dynamized physical Art Deco 'ornament' that lends the moment of movement a timeless form. Encke thus creates here an outstanding work of new body aesthetics.
About the artist
Eberhard Encke was the son of the Berlin sculptor Erdmann Encke (1843-1896), a member of the Rauch School, whose marble monument to Queen Luise, unveiled in the Tiergarten in 1880, still delights visitors to the park today. His son Eberhard studied at the Munich Art Academy from 1901, first under Ludwig von Herterich and then with Wilhelm von Rümann. After the latter's death, Encke continued his studies at the Academy of Arts in his hometown of Berlin as a master student of Gerhard Janensch. In 1906, he made his debut at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition with the bronze statue “Hermes” and in the same year was awarded the Academy's Rome Prize for his life-size plaster figure “The Youth”, which enabled him to study in Rome. Back in Berlin, he became a master student of Louis Tuaillon, whose “Amazon on Horseback” still stands guard today in front of the New National Gallery and in the Tiergarten. Encke created his “Faustkämpfer” in Tuaillon's studio, for which he was awarded the “Golden Prussian State Medal for Art”. A bronze cast melted down during the Second World War once stood in the Prussian Park in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, and another can still be seen today on the Rathausplatz in Hamburg-Harburg.
Before the turn of the century, his father had built the Erdmannshof in Neubabelsberg, which his son leased to Peter Behrens in 1907. In collaboration with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier, Behrens built the Mannesmann Building in Düsseldorf in 1911 and the Continental House in Hanover in 1912, for which Eberhard Encke created the architectural sculpture. The largest project in which Behrens and Encke worked together was the German Embassy in St. Petersburg, completed in 1913, for which Encke created a monumental parapet group, which was demolished shortly after the outbreak of World War I.
From 1911 Encke had his own studio in Berlin-Friedenau until he moved to Erdmannshof in 1928, where he devoted himself increasingly to monumental sculpture. For the 1936 Summer Olympics, he was commissioned to create a temporary monumental sculpture on Pariser Platz, from which the groups "Striving for the Olympic Victory Prize," later cast in bronze, each depicting two men and two women, emerged. In the same year, the artist died during a stay at a spa in Bad Nauheim.
Eberhard Encke's oeuvre is varied and includes salon sculptures, busts, tomb sculptures, monuments, medals and plaques. With his work, he was able to open the Rauch school, which was still represented by his father during the Wilhelmine period, to modern sculpture.