On the occasion of the exhibition in Retz, which was mentioned under News, we were again interested in the question of how much Hugo Lederer was influenced by his birthplace. There he received an amazing basic education. Probably the most comprehensive training for him took place in the "Fachschule für Ton-Industrie etc." (technical college for clay industry etc.). It was a leading institution during the Habsburg period and was moved to Prague immediately after the founding of the Czech Republic. His striking admiration of Bismarck is probably not only family-related (and is also only be proven by a few statements), but is documented by his recurrent efforts to make contacts with the Bismarck family up to his two monuments (see 2.1900.05. Barmen/Wuppertal and 2.1906.02 Hamburg as well as the heads of the Bismarck towers 2.1908.11.). This admiration probably stems from the excellent impression left by Bismarck's troops in southern Moravia in 1866. This was less military than human and national. The fierce conflict between the nationalities took place later - at least in South Moravia. Krey writes:
For Lederer, the model for his sculptures was always pure nature [...]. Lederer owes this bond with nature to his deep home experience [...]. - (elsewhere:) The great scenic attractions of the undulating, vine-covered hill country in South Moravia, the quaint immediate vicinity of Znojmo [...] awakened from early on in the boy a special feeling [...] of the closeness to nature. - Hugo Lederer, like his close-knit South Moravian compatriots, is soft-tempered by nature. The Znaimer are very much inclined to the Viennese in their nature, they are sociable, lively and spirited [...]. (The feeling of belonging to a nation) has always been alive in these people as a consciousness of living directly on a border [...]. In the young Lederer this feeling lived only instinctively too, because in his social circles the problems of the nationality struggles were not up for discussion; [...].
Krey must have read in conversations with Lederer between the lines and concluded Lederes close relationship with the landscape as well as with the city of his childhood and especially his family from these conversations, otherwise he would not have been able to write like that. And somehow Lederer's children also realized that his work belongs to Znojmo, which is still the case today and pleasingly maintained! We were allowed to visit the Lederer room in the castle and can only recommend it to visit!
About the artistic development of Hugo Lederer, Krey writes in this article:
When the 22-year-old Lederer came to Berlin in 1893, the sculptural work there was completely under the spell of the compelling personality of Reinhold Begas [...]. The sculpture came under the students of [...] Begas to the stage of a disintegrating, crafting bauble [...].
At the turn of the last century [...], a counter-movement began, which was fought as a hot fight. The leader of these movement was Adolf Hildebrand in Munich [...]. Through a spiritual principle, through the fixation of indisputable laws for the sculptural form, Hildebrand became the herald of a monumentalizing design.
And a third outstanding personality appeared at this time of the Berlin Secession: August Rodin.
[...]
But Lederer loved two masters with all the power of his heart, their accomplishments and their inaccessible greatness were his incentive: Michelangelo and Rodin.
There is nothing to add to these sentences of Krey's. This also applies to the internals, which have been missed by many critics in their art historical assessment. Krey may have been inaccurate in some of his publications (especially with information about the time of origin of a work), but he still proves to be one of the best connoisseurs of Hugo Lederer's work.