Waldemar Fritsch

Waldemar Fritsch (23 March 1909 – 13 July 1978) was a Sudeten-German porcelain sculptor and ceramist, who lived and worked in Ansbach, Germany after his expulsion from West Bohemia in 1946.
Biography
Waldemar Fritsch was born in 1909 as a tenth and last child in Altrohlau (today Stará Role, part of Karlovy Vary), part of the double monarchy of Austria-Hungary. His father worked as a fiacre in Karlovy Vary until the age of 75. After graduating from the Volks und Bürgerschule, Fritsch trained as a porcelain tool and mold founder in the "Viktoria" porcelain factory in Altrohlau. The area around Egerland, Karlovy Vary and Teplitz-Schönau were regarded as important sites of the porcelain and ceramics industry. Technical schools for the technical and artistic training of ceramists existed in Karlovy Vary (since 1925) and Teplitz-Schönau (1875), and in 1811 porcelain was produced in Altrohlau.
Fritsch went to the Prague School of Fine Art from 1929 and the Porzellanfachschule Karlsbad-Fischern from 1926. In his creations, he drew attention by the artistic quality of small sculptures such as the terracotta-relief "Jugend," a kitten and chicken group as well as a lying wolfshund. In Prague, he created porcelain sculptures of Saint Sebastian, a loreley, a cockatoos, and a woman with a child and a baby.
In 1934, Fritsch received an assistant position at the state school for ceramics in Teplitz-Schönau, which he took over in the autumn of 1938. In 1939, he was awarded a professorship for applied sculpture to the State College of the Porcelain Industry in Karlovy Vary. After denouncing the Nazis, Fritsch was imprisoned in Dresden and Berlin by the Gestapo in 1939. When freed in 1940, he was forbidden to work. From 1943 and until the war ended, he served in the Wehrmacht.
In 1946, he moved to southwest Germany with his 80-year-old parents, where he found a new home in Ansbach in 1947 after temporary stays in Stuttgart-Wendlingen and Ellingen. A period of great creativity followed after moving to Ansbach. His porcelain sculptures were in the Ansbach museum, which dedicated a special exhibition to Fritsch in 1963. He died 13 July 1978 in Ansbach and is buried in the cemetery of the church of St. Lambertus in Ansbach-Eyb.
Works
His works, in approximate chronological order are:
Scalare
Egerländer farmers couple
Girl with the carnation
Holy family on the run
Floating
Blessing Christ
Sinning youth
Venus in the arbor
Lying youth
Lying girls
Dreikönig's group
Listening
Christ's head
Young man's head
Allegory on Carlsbad
Day, night and morning
Night Song
Ecce homo
Xuchitl
Ixcauatzine
References
Further reading
By Fritsch
Waldemar Fritsch: Porzellan, Keramik, Plastik. Delpsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1961. (16 Seiten)
Waldemar Fritsch, Georg Lengl: Das Gesicht: Porträts und kompositorische Bildnisse. H. Carl, 1969. (15 Seiten)
Waldemar Fritsch, Lothar Henning: Natur und Phantastik: Plastik, Porträt, Porzellan. Ansbacher Museumsverlag, 1983. (100 Seiten)
By others
Adolf Lang: Waldemar Fritsch: Natur und Phantastik; Plastik, Porträt, Porzellan. Ansbacher Museumsverlag, 1977. (84 Seiten)
Xaver Schaffer: Waldemar Fritsch: Porzellan, Keramik, Plastik. Delp, 1961. (16 Seiten)
Justin Siegert: Waldemar Fritsch: dem Egerländer Porzellanbildner zum Gedächtnis. Duppel, 1980. (11 Seiten)
External links
in the catalog of the German National Library
German sculptors
1909 births
1978 deaths
People from Ansbach
People from Karlovy Vary
German ceramists
German male sculptors
20th-century German sculptors
20th-century ceramists
Czechoslovak emigrants to Germany