103 H.J. Pagels: Portrait bust of Rudolf Hess.
Green patinated bronze head. Artist's signature "H.J.PAGELS" on the left rear section of the neck. On a limestone base.
Expressive head portrait of the Führer's deputy, NSDAP Reichsleiter Rudolf Hess.
Total height: 33 cm. Bronze head: 23 cm.
Hermann Joachim Heinrich Pagels (* 11 September 1876 in Lübeck; † 1 July 1959 in Berlin) was a German sculptor.
Pagels was the son of the merchant Heinrich Pagels and his wife Mathilde (née Höppner). His father was the senior manager of the Heinr. Pagels company in Breite Straße in Lübeck, a porcelain and household goods shop. He was a fellow pupil of Thomas Mann at the Katharineum in Lübeck. Together with Fritz Behn and Hans Schwegerle, he formed a group of Lübeck artists of almost the same age who became successful sculptors and whose realism corresponded to the taste of the time. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1894 to 1900, where he was a student of Otto Brausewetter, Peter Breuer and Ernst Herter and worked in their studios from 1901 to 1904. In 1896 he won first prize at the academy for the composition of a drawing and in 1900 for the composition of a statue.
Period after 1900
In 1904, Pagels was represented with three sculptures at the International Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf. In the same year, he received a bronze medal at the World Exhibition in St. Louis, where he was represented with the bronzes Pessimist and Snake. In 1905, he opened his own studio and received an "honourable mention" from the Society for Berlin Art for his group of children. From 1907, he travelled to France and Italy and worked in Florence for 18 months. After his return, he had his studio in the studio house Siegmunds Hof 11 in the Hansaviertel; his political attitude at this time was described as socially liberal in his Wer ist's? entry from 1908.
In 1911, he created the design for a KPM porcelain figure, a portrait statuette of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm. His better-known early works include the Chicken Thief Fountain on Aachen's Town Hall Square (1913). This was destroyed during the Second World War and replaced by a new cast in 1953. Casts of the Chicken Thief, of which there was also a smaller version, can be found in the palace gardens of Berlin-Köpenick and in the collection of the Behnhaus in Lübeck. The Allach porcelain manufactory sold a 27 cm high porcelain version as model no. 126.
On 2 August 1914, he went into the field with the Lichterfelde Guards Rifle Battalion as a deputy sergeant and was the first of them to receive the Iron Cross in November. As a deputy officer with the Landwehr Regiment 12, he was promoted to lieutenant. In November 1915, he fought with the 3rd Jäger Regiment on horseback. In 1917, his then 21-year-old relative Hermann Pagels was killed in action in France. He was buried in the family grave at the Burgtorf cemetery in Lübeck, which was artistically designed by Hermann Joachim Pagels in 1908.
Pagels created the mausoleum for Emil Possehl at the Burgtorf cemetery in 1921. He was also represented in Berlin cemeteries with gravestone art, in particular at the Lichterfelde park cemetery and at Frankfurt's main cemetery, where a Christ figure designed by him adorned the Kremsky tomb.
In 1925, through the mediation of Erwin Barth, a horticultural director from Lübeck, he was commissioned to create a group of figures to decorate the entrance to Jungfernheidepark and at the same time symbolise the idea of the Volkspark. Of the two-part group, only one of the two bears with playing children survived after the Second World War. In 2011, a faithful replica of the second bear was erected on Bärenplatz in Volkspark Jungfernheide.
During the National Socialist era, Pagels became famous for his busts of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi celebrities. Hitler purchased the work Swimmer from Pagels for 8,000 Reichsmarks. Pagels' works were also shown at the Great Munich Art Exhibition in 1936, where he was represented with marble and bronze busts of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt and Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch. His bronze busts of Rudolf Hess, Joseph Goebbels and Benito Mussolini, among others, were exhibited at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich in 1940.
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