Hans Wissel (1897–1948)

Hans Wissel (1897–1948) is one of the forgotten artists of the 20th century. Coming from the applied arts, he turned to free sculpture in the early 1920s. His distinctive contribution to modernity consists of hammered metal sculptures, which are being presented comprehensively for the first time here. As a professor of sculpture at the Cologne School of Arts (1925–31), Wissel collaborated with renowned architects such as Martin Elsässer, Dominikus Böhm, and Otto Bartning. Under the influence of National Socialist art policy, Wissel, now a professor at the Academy of Arts in Königsberg, exclusively embraced a regime-compliant neoclassicism. At the same time, earlier works were confiscated as degenerate. Using unpublished photos from family archives, obscure contemporary publications, and archival material, Wissel's partially lost complete oeuvre is being reconstructed. Art historian Dr. Elisabeth Peters illustrates through Wissel's fate how, after 1933, artistic individuality withered and the momentum of modernity was broken.