Ludwig Nick

Life and work Nick was born in Münster. He was practically educated in stone and wood sculpting by (1840–1890) there, and he visited the local Kunst- und Gewerbeschule. After practising his profession for several years, he started a six-year study at the Königliche akademische Hochschule für die bildenden Künste in Berlin, receiving master classes from Peter Breuer and Ernst Herter. He showed a marble piece called 'Verlassen' ('Abandoned'), which was then bought by the German Emperor Wilhelm II. In 1908, Nick won a one-year travel scholarship from the Paul Schultze-Stiftung, better known as the Rom-Preis (Rome Award) of the Preußische Akademie der Künste. After the stay he started to work at the Berlin Akademie. Körner, based in Essen and famous for his design of the Old Synagogue there, commissioned Nick for stone sculpture jewelry for public and private buildings, for a marmor fireplace and bronze statues for the court state in Darmstadt, and also for the giant nail man . in the same year, Nick created sculptures of Gerrit Jan van Heek (1837-1915), a textile manufacturer from Enschede, and his second wife Christine Friederike Van Heek-Meier (1842-1920), the parents of Jan Herman van Heek.

After the war had ended, in 1918, Nick created many war memorials, among other in Berlin-Schmargendorf. In 1924 he sculpted the stone lion for the , the warrior memorial for Leipzig University, a monument designed by August Gaul, who had died before finishing it. In 1925 he made a wooden epitaph for the members of the Berliner Liedertafel that fell in World War I.

Nick worked freelance for Meissen porcelain from about 1927 to 1930 – the factory acquired several of his models. Among his Meissen works are Hirte (1929), Rübezahl (1930), Mutter mit Kind (1930) and other figurines, that often came in cheaper white and more expensive colored, sometimes gold decorated versions. The same year the City of Berlin purchased Nick's Madonna, a piece that was on display at the Verein's autumn exposition.

In Weimar in 1930, the architect, critic and NSDAP member Paul Schultze-Naumburg on the initiative of Wilhelm Frick got in charge of the Weimar Hochschule. Among Nick's students was Jan Holschuh.

In 1936 he created the chain of office for the mayor of Eisenach and in Gerstungen he finished his .

Some works

Brandmonument (1912), the "Fire monument" in Enschede, commemorating the that destroyed the entire inner city, ended the lives of two women and left 3675 inhabitants roofless. The 5 meter high monument is made of grey sandstone, carrying bronze plates and the city's coat of arms at the sides and a sculpture of a female figure with a horn of plenty on top, and it has two side basins for the water that comes from lion heads. Schmied von Essen (1915), "Blacksmith of Essen", a 3.5 meter high nail man relief, an oak wood triptych housed in a white, temple-like pavilion designed by Körner that was built on the forecourt of Essen Hauptbahnhof. The central figure, the 'iron man' standing before an Iron Cross, held a sword and a shield with the Reichsadler; next to his head were the words Gott mit uns, lying at the feet a 8-headed Hydra, its heads symbolizing the enemies of Germany; the side panels held two quotes from Wilhelm II. The pavilion was dismantled in 1918, the year the Emperor abdicated, and after the central figure had been restored it was re-erected in the city park StadtGarten Essen, before being moved to the Grugapark in 1934, where it was lost during a bombardment in World War II. Löwendenkmal der Universität Leipzig (1924), a monument baring the names of 1396 students and employees that have fallen in World War I. Designed by Gaul, the memorial was finished by his student , while Nick was commissioned to sculpt the lion. Two sandstone figures (1935), personifications of the "Nährstand" (farmers class) and the "Wehrstand" (nobility class), on the stepped gables of a bank building by Schultze-Naumburg in Parchim. Storchenbrunnen (1934–36), "Stork well" in Gerstungen, an octagonal Muschelkalk fountain with animal figurines decorating a four spouts central water inlet that is topped by a slender limestone column carrying a roughly life-size bronze stork, the heraldic charge of the community. Chain of office for the mayor of Eisenach (1936). In 1945 the National Socialist symbols were removed from the chain.

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