Benno Elkan

BENNO ELKAN (Westphalia, 1877 - London, 1960).
"Baboon."
Partially glazed ceramic.
Presents mark on the base.
Signed.
Measurements: 15,5 x 15,5 x 11 cm.
Benno Elkan was a British sculptor and medalist born in Germany. After a brief job as a salesman in Antwerp, which he interrupted, with the consent of his parents, to prepare for the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from December 1897, he enrolled in the private art school of the painter Walter Thor. After passing the exam at Easter 1898, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts with the painter Johann Caspar Herterich4. In 1900 he did his military service, and in 1901 he continued his art studies in Karlsruhe with the painter Friedrich Fehr.
In 1903 he decided to devote himself exclusively to sculpture. His first commission as a sculptor came from his hometown of Dortmund: the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dortmunder General-Anzeiger, Karl Richter, asked the young sculptor to create a life-size statue of a young woman for the Richter-Seippel family tomb. The statue of Elkan, symbolizing life in constant search of the true path,6 is preserved in the eastern cemetery in Dortmund.