Renowned Art Deco sculptor and ceramicist Otto Poertzel was born in Scheibe, Germany in 1876. The son of a porcelain designer, Poertzel secured an apprenticeship at a porcelain factory before progressing to studying porcelain techniques at the technical academy in Sonnenberg.
In 1900 he opened his own studio in Coburg, from which he worked as a freelance sculptor before a move to Munich in 1908. Here he enrolled at the city’s Academy of Art whilst continuing his artistic practice.
Poertzel worked in bronze, stone and porcelain, producing figural sculptures, mostly of female dancers or performers, executed in his signature dynamic and elegant style synonymous with the Art Deco. He also designed animal form sculptures, typically imperial-style birds or aristocratic hunting dogs. So admired was his work that the German government commissioned him on multiple occasions, the first being in 1907 to design a bust for the Alexandrine Fountain in Coburg. Then in 1913 he was awarded the title of ‘Professor’ by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in recognition of his services to the German state, ‘Prof.’ being added to his signature from this date onwards.
He exhibited at numerous fairs, including the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis and the Brussel’s International Art Fair in 1910. Poertzel died in Coburg in 1963.
Illustrated: Sculpture "Kneeling Female Nude" or "Flower Picker" by Otto Pörtzel, carved in artificial shell limestone, located within the listed historic park of Niedersedlitz, Dresden, Saxony. Image: Brücke-Osteuropa, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
