Male nude

History of the work

In the open ground floor of the gibb vocational school at Lorrainestrasse 1 stands a bronze fountain figure of a naked man. The City of Bern lists it as 'Männlicher Akt' (Male Nude) by Walter Linck, dated 1940. Wikimedia Commons calls the ensemble the trade school fountain and records the figure as untitled, describing it as a reclining male nude.

The school building was built from 1937 to 1939. According to Open House Bern the plans are signed by Hans Brechbühler, though the design and site management may largely have been the work of his young colleague Max Jenni. A competition with eighty entrants preceded it in 1935. The five-storey block stands on pillars; at first the ground floor was left almost completely open, and a cafeteria was fitted into it only in 1977.

Linck, born in Bern in 1903, had studied sculpture in Berlin and lived in Paris from 1928. According to the artists' lexicon SIKART he commuted between Bern and Paris in the 1930s and received his first public commissions for fountain figures in Bern, among them the mercenary on Bärenplatz. In 1940, the year of this figure, he returned to Switzerland for good.

SIKART describes his nudes of that period as calm, closed bodies influenced by Aristide Maillol and Charles Despiau, and counts him among the leading Swiss figurative sculptors of the 1940s. In 1943 he broke with this work: he sank almost all of his previous output in the Aare and from then on worked in metal. Later came moving constructions of wire and spring steel, with which he took part in documenta II in 1959. Linck died in 1975.

Visitors find the figure between the building's pillars, beneath the school rather than in front of it. The school, which Open House Bern calls a major work of classic Modernism, is visible from afar thanks to its position and marks the way into the Lorraine district.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Open House Bern: gibb Hauptgebäude · SIKART: Walter Linck (Michael Baumgartner) · HLS: Walter Linck · Wikipedia (de): Walter Linck · Wikimedia Commons: Gewerbeschulebrunnen (ohne Titel – Walter Linck 1940)