1928 Leipzig – 2013 Berlin

It is the human existence with all its emotions and dynamics – from lust, joy, passion, rebellion to pain, rest or contemplation, which Rolf Szymanski employed for decades in his sculptural work. Anthropomorphic figures, his only theme, embody these vital energies in iron or bronze, sporadically cast in aluminum, or seldom carved in wood or stone.

Szymanski studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule Leipzig under Alfred Thiele from 1945 to 1950 and studied from 1950 to 1955 at the Berlin University of the Arts with Bernhard Heiliger, Richard Scheibe and Paul Dierkes. In 1964 he was a participant in the documenta III, Kassel. He undertook numerous study trips: from 1962 to 1964 he stayed in Florence and Rome, 1968 in Paris and 1980 in Israel. From 1971 until 1974 he was deputy director of the Department of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, then he was director there until 1983 and finally until 1986 vice president. From 1986 to 1996 he was a professor at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. In 1990 he participated in the 44th Venice Biennale, Venice. In 1999 he became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.