Ignaz Günther

Ignaz Günther (22 November 1725 – 27 June 1775) was a German sculptor and woodcarver working in the Bavarian Rococo tradition.[1]

Memorial stone commemorating Ignaz Günther at the former abbey church in Rott am Inn
Günther's Maria Immaculata (ca. 1750/60), now in the Bode Museum in Berlin

He was born in Altmannstein, Germany, where he received his earliest training from his father, then studied in Munich under the court sculptor Johann Baptist Straub from 1743 to 1750. His Wanderjahre took him to Salzburg, Olmütz, Vienna, and Mannheim, where he studied with Paul Egell from 1751 to 1752. Between May and October 1753, he was enrolled in the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and won the annual students' competition. In 1754, he started his own workshop in Munich, where he remained until his death in 1775.[2]

He is best remembered for his work in churches, especially his altars.

A wooden crucifix styled by Günther was given by the official Bavarian civil and ecclesiastical delegation as an 85th birthday gift to Pope Benedict XVI, a native of Bavaria, on Monday 16 April 2012.[3]

Major works

Notes

  1. The standard monograph is P. Volk, Ignaz Günther (Regensburg, 1991), building upon Adolf Feulner, Ignaz Günther, kurfürstlich bayerischer Hofbildhauer 1725-1775 (Vienna, 1920) and Günther, der große Bildhauer des bayerischen Rokokos (Munich, 1947)
  2. Christiane Hertel; Ignaz Günther (2011). Pygmalion in Bavaria: The Sculptor Ignaz Günther and Eighteenth-century Aesthetic Art Theory. Penn State Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-271-03737-0.
  3. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1201538.htm%5B%5D

Bibliography

  • Christiane Hertel, Pygmalion in Bavaria: The Sculptor Ignaz Günther and Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic Art Theory (University Park, PA, 2011).
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