Hans Josephsohn

The work of the Swiss artist Hans Josephsohn (1920-2012), one of the great masters of sculpture of the second half of the 20th century

Born in 1920 in Eastern Prussia from Jewish parents, Hans Josephsohn left Germany in 1937 and settled in Florence with the aim of studying art. Forced to leave due to fascist racial laws, he moved to Switzerland, which became his adoptive country. Josephsohn's oeuvre has been defined as "existential sculpture": in a time that was strongly characterised by the physical and moral devastation left by World War II, Hans Josephsohn developed a language capable to talk about the fragile relationship of mankind with the surrounding world. He was concerned with representing the human being as a figure in space throughout his life. His sculptures are characterised by an ambivalence of the almost abstract figure whose individuality is secured by its form, material and surface.