Education
Born in a family of artists, he studied at the Königlich Preußischen Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1872 to 1880.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Karl Janssen
Edit ProfileCareer
In 1878 he garnered a scholarship to study in Rome. He remained in Italy from 1881 to 1884. On his return his first notable commission was for a memorial portrait bust of the industrialist Poensgen (1883) for his monument in the Nordfriedhof, Poensgen (1883) für dessen Erbbegräbnis auf dem Nordfriedhof.
The result so pleased Düsseldorfers that in 1897 Janssen and Tüshaus were requested to cast a more durable version in bronze, for a city fountain (illustrated).
The previous year (1896), he cast the equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm, lost in the Second World War. Since 1893 he had been teaching as a professor, taking the chair of the late August Wittig.
Among his outstanding pupils were Frédéric Coubillier and Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Following the First World War he was commissioned by Henkel to sculpt a war memorial to fallen Henkel workers, to be erected at the Henkel works in Düsseldorf-Holthausen.
His last well-known work was also for the Henkel family, a mourning figure in Art Deco style for the family mausoleum (1925).
