Gerth, Fritz

Sculptor

born: 24.06.1845 in Wiesbaden

died: 04.10.1928 in Berlin

Gerth received his first artistic training from his father Johann Julius Gerth, a modeler and sculptor. He also studied in Strasbourg and Berlin with Gustav Hermann Blaeser.

In 1874 he went to Rome, where he joined the German Artists' Association, of which he later became president. He maintained his own studio in Rome. There he worked for the English art market and created funerary monuments for families in Rome and Naples. He also received commissions from the Italian state.

He returned to Berlin in 1900. He quickly became known as a portraitist who created lifelike, characterful portraits and busts. Among other things, he was commissioned by the imperial family to create a group of 32 statues for the former Victory Avenue in Berlin's Tiergarten, including the statue of Empress Frederick, Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland (1840-1901). These works were of particular interest to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who visited the sculptor in his Berlin studio.

A number of Gerth's works can be found in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe: His first public work there was dedicated to the tomb of the hotelier Weigand's family in the Protestant cemetery (1895). This was followed by the bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Bad (1905), the Landgrave Monument in Brunnenallee (1906) and the monument to Landgravine Elisabeth of Hesse-Homburg in the English Church (1908). The Nassau State Monument on Biebricher Allee is considered his main work. In Biebrich, he created the memorial for the fallen at the cemetery of honor after the First World War.

Gerth spent the rest of his life in Berlin. He lost his entire fortune due to inflation. Gerth received some financial support from the Wiesbaden district administration, from the Wiesbaden city administration and from a family in Bad Homburg.