Christoph Voll (German, 1897-1939)

Christoph Voll's Expressionist oeuvre marked him out as a clear successor to the artists of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. He was destined to become a sculptor, beginning his apprenticeship to a stonemason in Dresden at the age of fourteen. After the First World War, he studied at the Kunstakademie, Dresden for three years from 1919 to 1922. He joined the Gruppe 19, which included Conrad Felixmüller, Otto Dix and Lasar Segall among its members, all united in their conviction that artists could create a better world by forcing man to confront the truth and horror of the modern day. Porträt des Kritikers Arthur Binz from 1926 is an extraordinarily evocative portrait of Voll's fellow academic at the Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk. Two years before Voll's death, his work was recognised internationally at the 1937 exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich alongside that of Albiker, Kolbe, and Schiessler, earning him the reputation as one of Germany's most important sculptors.