Background
Kraft was born in c. 1460 supposedly in Nürnberg, Germany.
Kraft was born in c. 1460 supposedly in Nürnberg, Germany.
Nothing is known of Kraft's training.
By about 1490 Kraft became one of the outstanding sculptors of the contemporary Gothic school of that city. Unlike most other German sculptors of the period, who carved in wood as the emphasis shifted from exterior to interior decoration of the great cathedrals, he continued to use the older Gothic medium of stone. Kraft's style follows the late Gothic tendency toward richly naturalistic, heavily draped figures and may best be seen in his reliefs of the Stations of the Cross (1490), originally located along the road to St. John's Cemetery in Nürnberg. They were later transferred, except for one which had been built into the wall of a house, to the Germanic Museum in that city and replaced with copies. His last work, a tomb in a chapel in St. John's Cemetery, was done in 1507, and Kraft died two years later in Schwabach, Germany.
