Description
Hermann Scherer (1893-1927)
German painter and sculptor, Scherer is considered one of the leading exponents of the expressionist sculpture. Grown up in a modest family, he started, since his childhood, to earn a living. At the age of 14 he began to work as stonemason. During the World War I, Scherer stayed in Basel, where he worked first as an assistant to Otto Ross and then alongside Carl Burckhardt. During this period, he realized his first sculptures, still characterized by a neoclassical style and an idealistic view of the human being. In 1922, the visit to the exhibition of Edvard Munch in Zurich, led him to begin the path of painting and to shift his production towards an expressionist representation, based on bold color contrasts. The crucial meeting for his expressionistic evolution took place in 1923, again in Basel, where he became friend with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Along with Kirchner, Scherer moved to Davos and the following year, with his friends Albert Müller and Paul Camenisch, he founded the group “Rot-Blau”. The wooden sculptures, made from 1924 onwards, are considered among the most significant of the expressionist movement. He died in Basel in May 1927 at the age of 34, due to the effects of a streptococcal infection. In 1979, he retired to Trouville-sur-Mer, where he died in 2002. The town, which now houses his permanent exhibition, has also devoted a promenade to him.
