Discipline: Visual Art

Waldemar Otto

Discipline: Visual Art
Region: Worpswede, GERMANY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1995

Waldemar Otto is a German sculptor and artist. In 1948 he began studying sculpture at the Berlin College of Fine Arts. One of his first great successes was in 1957, at the age of 28, the award for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In 1961 he created his first torsos, which have since become characteristic of his work. In 1973 he was appointed to a professorship at the University of the Arts Bremen. Internationally, Waldemar Otto was honored by various awards, work stays, and exhibitions. Otto lives in the artist village Worpswede near Bremen and is a major protagonists of figurative sculpture – not sculpted but shaped sculptures. He sculptured the sculptures three-dimensionally in the classical manner, but presented the human body with a combative and passionate spirituality. Details, volumes, and proportions are always clearly arranged. There is no irreconcilable contradiction between abstract form-construction and nature-model. Wood and granite are among the materials he uses, and for the Great Art Show in Worpswede he designed a fountain with two bronze figures representing Bacchus and a Bacchante. The fountain is surrounded by a brick siding, which had been fired as part of a fundraising project.

Studios

Mixter

Waldemar Otto worked in the Mixter studio.

Built in 1927–1930, the Florence Kilpatrick Mixter Studio was funded by its namesake and designed by the architect F. Winsor, Jr., who also designed MacDowell's original Savidge Library in 1925. Mixter Studio, solidly built of yellow and grey-hued granite, once had sweeping views of Pack Monadnock to the east. The lush forest has now grown…

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