Crouching female nude

History of the work

At the entrance to the Kunsthalle park by Helvetiaplatz, a nude female figure of artificial stone crouches. The Bernese sculptor Paul Kunz made it in 1918. On Wikimedia Commons the photograph is filed under the title 'Weiblicher Akt' (Female Nude); the city lists the work as 'Kauernder Frauenakt' (Crouching Female Nude).

According to the artists' lexicon SIKART, Paul Kunz was born in Bern on 15 December 1890 and died there on 21 August 1959; his place of citizenship was Dielsdorf in the canton of Zurich. He trained as a wood sculptor and worked as a sculptor and woodcut artist. SIKART names portraits and sculptures in public space as his main fields and records 14 exhibitions and two awards.

Another work by Kunz stands at a different bridge in Bern: for the southern end of the Lorraine bridge, Kunz designed two shell limestone sculptures in 1936, which can still be seen there today. The figure at Helvetiaplatz is almost twenty years older.

In that same year, 1918, the Kunsthalle on Helvetiaplatz was also completed: the Kunsthalle Bern association had the exhibition building put up in 1917 and 1918 and opened it on 5 October 1918. In the same year Etienne Perincioli's centaur, also of artificial stone, was made for the nearby end of the Kirchenfeld bridge. Looking at both figures one after the other, you see two works from the same year and of the same material, standing only about 50 metres apart.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Paul Kunz · Wikipedia (de): Lorrainebrücke · Wikipedia (de): Kunsthalle Bern · perincioli.ch: Etienne Perincioli, Kunst am Bau (Kentaur, 1918) · Wikimedia Commons: Kunststeinskulptur Weiblicher Akt (Paul Kunz 1918)