Magdalene Kreßner

Magdalene Kreßner, known as 'Ebbi' to her family and friends, was born 115 years ago, on 3 October 1899, in Schweizertal near Chemnitz and was sent to a boarding school for her education. However, she soon felt an aversion to this institution and was eventually allowed to attend the Alte Kunstschule Richter in Dresden. It was here that her love of art was awakened and she became certain that she did not just want to paint, but also to 'immerse herself' in sculpture. Her studies from 1921-1930 in Berlin Charlottenburg and as a master student in Dresden perfected her talent for combining general sculptural contrasts with the sphere of space. Principled arrangements merged with the element of stillness and movement. She had been working as a freelance artist in Dresden since 1930, but on the night of the bombing on 13 February 1945, not only was her studio destroyed and with it almost all of her early work, but she herself lost her home. Her path led her to Eduard-Bilz-Straße 42 in Radebeul, where she found a new home and a place to create her art until the end of her life. She died in Dresden on 18 May 1975.

The range of her artistic work encompassed the most diverse human emotions, which were always captured in different but lifelike motifs and designs. Themes such as dance and joy, grief and fear, contemplation and action were just as much a focus as the relationship between mother and child, between the helper and the needy or between rebel and oppressor. The materials used in her sculptures were just as varied as her motifs. Relief forms, group compositions or individual portraits were created from metal, wood, plaster, ceramic or stone. In addition to her sculptural works, she drew a large number of sketches, which were not, as is so often the case, merely intended as preliminary studies, but rather as a completion and symbiosis of her multifaceted sphere of activity. The illustrations for Thomas Mann's novel cycle Joseph and his Brothersare particularly noteworthy.

Magdalene Kreßner was also creatively involved in the reconstruction of Dresden. Here, the form of the relief best expressed her artistic strength, for example with the contribution "Children playing music at the carnival" in Blochmannstraße, which combines many characteristics of her work. This work is rhythmic and balanced, with the sculptor focussing on the essentials. Her works are earthy and connected to real life. In harmony with nature, the artist always gets to the heart of the matter, never drifting into the superficial.

She also found a sparkling creative field of activity in the interplay of dance and sculpture. While still a student, she was entrusted with the design of the arcade at the Chemnitz theatre. For the performance of the ballet play "Romeo and Juliet" at the Landesbühnen Sachsen, she realised key dance scenes in figurative representations. One of her major works was a bronze relief based on Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake for the Neva Hotel in Dresden.

Another outstanding work of art can be found in the Radebeul-Ost cemetery chapel. The crucifixion group, created in 1955/56, shows Jesus, marked by suffering, the mourning Mary and John the Baptist, as he looks up trustingly at the Crucified One and holds the Mother of God, as if supporting her. Content and form are combined here with subtle empathy. With her original pictorial language and emotional motifs, Magdalene Kreßner joins the ranks of important artists who have always remained true to the tradition of bourgeois-humanist sculpture.

Maren Gündel, City Archive

Published in: Official Gazette Radebeul, October 2014