Four portrait heads

History of the work

Four sandstone heads are set into the facade of the Swiss Rifle Museum on Bernastrasse. Walter Linck made them in 1939. According to Wikipedia the portraits show presidents of the Swiss Shooting Association.

The building went up in 1938 and 1939 as an annex to the Historical Museum. According to the City of Bern's building inventory it was built by a partnership of the architects Emilien Bertallo and Hans Klauser for the Bern shooting society. The three-storey rendered building on a base of sandstone blocks deliberately draws on Gothic and rural models and looks almost like a castle; a roof turret with a clock rises above the tower-like part with the entrance. The inventory values it as a document of the years just before the outbreak of war. The museum opened on 26 November 1939; inside it has a mural by Friedrich Traffelet. The exterior was renovated in 1985.

Linck was born in Bern in 1903, the son of the painter Ernst Linck; the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland gives 3 February, Wikipedia 5 February. He trained at the Gewerbeschule in Bern and in the metalwork class of the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, then studied sculpture in Berlin. In 1928 he moved to Paris with his wife Margrit and worked there as a figure and portrait sculptor; until 1939 he lived alternately in Paris and Bern. From the same period comes the returning mercenary on the Bärenplatz fountain of 1935.

In 1943, according to the dictionary, Linck destroyed his existing work and from then on worked in metal: mobile wire figures, constructions of springy steel bands and later large steel sculptures. He died on 3 January 1975 in Reichenbach near Zollikofen. The heads on the Rifle Museum therefore date from before that break; they survived as part of the facade. Standing in front of the building, you can also see the clock in the roof turret above the entrance.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Walter Linck · HLS: Linck, Walter (Michael Baumgartner) · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Bernastrasse 5, Schützenmuseum · GPSmyCity: Swiss Rifle Museum · Wikimedia Commons: Sandsteinskulpturen-Ensemble Vier Porträtköpfe (Walter Linck 1939)