Nike
This larger than life figure of Nike in the Skulpturenhof at the Lehmbruck Museum illustrates the transition from figurative to abstract sculpture in Bernhard Heiliger’s work. Heiliger, who studied with Arno Breker in Berlin from 1938-1941, developed dynamic abstracted figures in the 1950s, which were replaced by complete abstraction, and then a turn to geometric forms in later years.
He portrays the goddess of victory as a powerful figure reaching upwards. The depiction is already highly abstracted. The suggested folds of her garment create a sense of the subject’s origins in antiquity. The raised arm and the forward movement are also characteristic of traditional representations of the goddess, transformed here into a formal language influenced by cubism and expressionism. Another casting of the bronze figure can be found in the Skulpturenhof at the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum in Duisburg.
Bernhard Heiliger
← Zur Startseite
City-See, 45768 Marl
