TORSO – A WORK OF ART IN VILLA TUGENDHAT

The third publication in the editorial series of the Study and Documentation Centre surveys in detail the previously known fate of a single work of art in the Villa Tugendhat, The Torso of A Walking Woman – a sculpture by the German expressionist Wilhelm Lehmbruck. The statue stood in the main living area in front of the onyx wall and the Tugendhats chose it on the recommendation of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After their escape from the Nazis, this statue experienced turbulent history just like the house. It disappeared from the villa during the war, but until November 2006, when it was released to the heirs of Greta and Fritz Tugendhat under the law to mitigate the injustice to holocaust victims, it practically never left the city of Brno. In February 2007 it was sold at London-based Sotheby’s auction house.

The publication is complemented by an introductory text on the Tugendhat Villa, a chapter presenting the personality and work of Wilhelm Lehmbruck and also the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg – its buildings were designed by the artist’s son, the architect Manfred Lehmbruck, who also briefly studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Bauhaus.

The book was published by the Brno City Museum in cooperation with the Brno House of Arts and the Villa Tugendhat Foundation in three languages (Czech, German, English).