Hans Josephsohn

Throughout his life, Josephsohn focused on the representation of the human figure in space. Rendered in plaster and later cast in bronze or brass, the artist’s sculptures are characterised by an urgent bodily materiality, combining immediacy of technique with an aesthetic of timelessness, in pursuit of capturing réalité vivante (living reality). Categorised into ‘Standing Figures’, ‘Seated Figures’, ‘Reclining Figures’, ‘Half-Figures’, ‘Heads’ and ‘Reliefs’, the works exemplify the central role played by the human form across Josephson’s oeuvre. His late works especially are characterised by the ambivalence of an almost abstract figure, whose individuality is ensured by form, material and surface.

Untitled (Ruth), 1968, is a tactile sculpture, cast in brass, from Josephsohn’s exemplary body of ‘Half- Figures’. Working from live models to capture the essence of his subjects, the artist based his works on people with whom he had a close connection. This included Ruth, his partner at the time, who became his model for twenty years following their first encounter in 1956. As Ulrich Meinherz, Director of the Kesselhaus Josephsohn, notes: ‘The pieces are not portraits in a strong sense […] but the starting point was always the encounter with the real person. Josephsohn was working in a very intuitive way. The pieces were more and more abstract. His subject was always the human figure as a volume in space, and in doing so, he always added more material than he removed.’ 

Throughout his practice, Josephsohn strived to convey human existence using the tools of his trade. A search for the right shape determined his work, with plaster being his preferred material. With plaster, that ‘soft stone’, he was able to revise and develop his works repeatedly, by adding and removing material. The rough surface of his sculptures – the result of a process of searching for the right form – is a defining feature. Running through all of Josephsohn’s works is an insistent corporality, an acceptance of the irrefutable heaviness and materiality of the human body. For him there is no spiritual possibility and therefore no truth outside the human body, which must bear all of life’s injuries. Josephsohn’s unique style is wholly committed to modernity, yet without renouncing tradition.

Untitled (Ruth) will be on display in the garden of the Bibliothek Günther Förg from July 2026, alongside works by André Butzer, Günther Förg, Ulrich Rückriem, Rebecca Warren and Toby Ziegler. The first work by Josephsohn to be exhibited here, it adds to the growing sculpture park of the Stiftung zur Förderung zeitgenössischer Kunst in Weidingen. The artist’s sculptures can also be found in the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau; Kolumba, Cologne; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstmuseum Appenzell; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée d‘Art Moderne de Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

The Kesselhaus Josephsohn in St. Gallen is a central exhibition space with a changing collection of bronzes and plaster models. La Congiunta, designed by Peter Märkli as a ‘house for reliefs and busts by Hans Josephsohn’ in Giornico, Switzerland, is dedicated exclusively to his works.