Arvid Knöppel, The Virgin Mary, Bronzed Wall Relief Plaster Sculpture, Signed.
Price:6500 SEK579 EUR624 USDChange Currency
Dimensions: Height 52 cm (21 inches) x Width 36 cm (15 inches)
A finely sculpted dark bronzed wall relief plaster sculpture of Virgin Mary by Arvid Knöppel, signed and dated 1921. An unusual subject of his works. Knöppel mostly created sculptures of animals. The present relief, dated 1921 is sculpted when Knöppel was in Italy, he was only 29 years old at the time. A small metal loop is attached to the back for wall hanging.
Gustav Arvid Oskar Knöppel (1892 - 1970), was a Swedish sculptor, draftsman, graphic artist, writer and painter. He grow up in Växjö which is surrounded by large areas of woods. During his upbringing he spent a lot of time with his father in the woods and fields where he got the love for the nature and its animals. The father, who was interested in hunting, was also acquainted with Bruno Liljefors, at the time one of Swedens most prominent painters, an artist whom he greatly admired, especially for his depiction of wild animals in nature. He trained at Althin's painting school with the sculptor Carl Fagerberg. Then at the Technical School and at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm 1914-17. He received the Duke's Medal in 1917 and was a scholar at the Royal Academy until 1919. With a government travel grant he was able to go abroad and during 1918-25 he lived and studied in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Arvid Knöppel's motifs were mainly animals. From 1944 until his death in 1970, he lived on his farm in Värmland, where he kept a small nordic wildlife preserve. He is above all known for animal sculptures and animal drawings. As an animal painter, he was a realist and an impressionist.
Arvid Knöppel also carried out decorations in several churches. He painted portraits and figure compositions and made drawings and sculptures of animals, bears, bison, lynx and badgers. He executed portrait busts of the artists, Gustaf Magnusson, Gunnar Torhamn and Gerhard Wihlborg.
Knöppel had several solo exhibitions: Stockholm 1917, Munich 1922, Liljevalchs 1924, 'De ungas salong' in Stockholm 1940, Gothenburg 1942, Norrköping 1943 as well as in several other Swedish and foreign cities, both at separate and group exhibitions.
He is represented in a number of museums of which some are the National museum of Stockholm, Waldemarsudde, Modern Museum of Art, Gothenburg Art Museum, Värmlands Museum in Karlstad and many more.