Background
Walter Arnold was the son of a Leipzig Stonemason.
politician sculptor university professor
Walter Arnold was the son of a Leipzig Stonemason.
Between 1928 and 1932 he studied the shapes of sculptures and ceramics under Alfred Thiele at the School of Craftsmanship at Leipzig.
Between 1957 and 1964 he was the president of the Association of Visual Artists (DDRA / Verband Bildender Künstler) in East Germany. Early years He trained between 1924 and 1928 in wood carving and Stone sculpture. After finishing his studies he worked as an assistant to Thiele until 1933, after which he worked as a freelance artist, supporting himself with contract work, including grave stone business and stonework renovation jobs.
He was a soldier during the war, ending up in a prison camp just outside Bad Kreuznach.
Returning home to Leipzig, in November 1946 he joined what was shortly to become ruling SED (party) of what was in the process of becoming the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Academic progress 1946 was also the year in which Walter Arnold started to teach at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig.
In 1949 he accepted an invitation to move to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts where he worked as a professor until 1970. His students included Reinhard Dietrich.
He then returned to the Academy in Leipzig where he was designated an emeritus professor in 1974, but continued to give master classes.
In 1958 he succeeded Otto Nagel as the president of the country"s Association of Visual Artists (DDRA / Verband Bildender Künstler). Arnold retained this position till 1964. Last things wood carvings portrait-busts and statuettes in memoriam.
Political progress
From 1952 to 1962 he was a Candidate for the Central Committee of The Party, being a member of it from 1958 till 1961. Ein frühes Denkmal für Opfer des Faschismus auf dem Südfriedhof (Leipzig) (an early memorial for victims of Fascism at the Southern Cemetery, Leipzig), 1949.
German Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany]
Arnold became a member of the East German de:Akademie der Künste der DDRAcademyu of Culture in 1952.
