98 Lore Friedrich - Gronau: The dancers Hedi Höpfner and Margot Höpfner in the "Kaiserwalzer" (1938)

Bronze. Without signature. Ca. 1938. Impressive bronze moulding of the group of dancers originally designed as a porcelain figure.

The figure was exhibited at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich in 1939 and received great acclaim.

40 x 41 cm.

Lore Friedrich-Gronau (birth name Leonore Berta Klara Gronau (* 1905 in Görlitz, Lower Silesia; † 2002 in Münsterschwarzach Abbey, Schwarzach am Main, Kitzingen district) was a German sculptor and illustrator.

Lore Gronau's parents were Martha Margarete Gronau and Walter Friedrich Eduard Gronau, who worked as a royal senior teacher at the mechanical engineering school in Görlitz and later in Aachen. At the age of ten, she was already exhibiting works of art and creating greeting cards and artist cards.

From 1928 to 1934, Friedrich-Gronau studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and was a master student of Fritz Klimsch (1870-1960). From 1920 to 1945, she lived and worked in Berlin. However, she lost her studio in a bombing raid in 1943. From 1939 to 1961, she worked as a freelancer for Rosenthal AG and created "porcelain figurines based on the living model". She created statuettes such as that of the famous actress Lilian Harvey as "Fanny Elßler" (1937 - 32.5 cm) and of the dancers Hedi Höpfner and Margot Höpfner in the "Kaiserwalzer" (1938), of Ursula Deinert as the "Czardas Dancer" (1939) and of Daisy Spies in the dance "Adagio"; also the "Frog Queen", "Snow White" and "The Blue Flower".

The "Kaiserwalzer" sculpture won the Grand Prix at the 1937 Paris World Exhibition and was given a place of honour in Adolf Hitler's private flat in the Reich Chancellery.

After losing her studio in Berlin, she lived in Bad Kissingen from 1945 to 1972 and later in the Benedictine Abbey of Münsterschwarzach, where she also had her studio.