The B'nai B'rith magazine · 1927-07-01 · 10 (7.1927) · p. Seite 429

Jacob Plessner An Interpreter of Character in Bronze By Israel Auerbach E JEWS are reproached with having no love for nature, with being too spiritual, too intellectual. And yet there is within us a deep longing for "things," and a passionate love for the "work of one's hands." And where this longing exists, there also will be found the ability to create for the longing is but the imminent expression of the creative power. In the Ghetto, among the East European Jewish masses, and in the Jewish antheaps of the large cities, only the leisure was lacking that would have enabled that love and aptitude for creative efforts to develop. Give the Jew a sense of security, so that he will not be obliged constantly to change his environment—give him a chance to grow under normal economic conditions, and he soon will manifest an astonishing productivity that will arouse the wonder of those who do not know him. Jacob Plessner was fortunate in his origin. He came from the quiet semighetto of the German-Jewish East Posen; his environment afforded him close contact with nature. From his ancestors, the famous Talmudists, he inherited his fine spirituality and capacity for precise observation. Plessner, as a child, displayed artistic talent and, at the same time, gave no indication of being able to find contentment or advancement in business. So there was nothing for his parents to do but to give free rein to his talents. He was apprenticed to a sculptor in Berlin and attended, first an artisans' school and later an art academy, only in the evenings and on Sundays. His 111! Jacob Plessner masters were Ernst Herter and Paul Meyerheim, and his chosen fields of art were portrait and animal sculpture. His relief, "The Plowing Peasant," and his animal sculptures won him admission to the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In 1901 he was awarded the Rome Prize of the Michael Beer Foundation for his relief, "Return from the Harvest." Of the many works which he produced during his two years in Rome, the sculpture, "Beggar Women of Perugia" attracted the greatest attention at exhibitions in Rome, Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam and Dresden. Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland, was one of the purchasers of his productions. Plessner's association with the B'nai B'rith of Germany has resulted in several fine works. Notable among them are his placque of Berthold Timendorfer, a brother Ben B'rith, and the fountain in the garden hall of the B'nai B'rith Lodge House at Berlin. As a member of Montefiore Lodge, r - w Mose6 Nendelssohny- * - ■i-''^.i/.\:/'r:'^Vy^ Beggar Women of Perugia 429