Raoh Schorr (1901-1991) Giraffe

About this piece

Expressive bronze giraffe by the Swiss artist Raoh Schorr (1901-1991). He has beautifully depicted the giraffe, just the way the giraffe stands with its long neck twisted. The expression is also so appealing, it makes you smile. It's a giraffe with character, something every animalist, like Raoh Schorr, strives for when creating an animal. The animal must, as it were, live.

The colour of the patina is very characteristic of the Art Deco period.

After his education at the Hoffmannschule in Munich, Raoh Schorr lived in Paris from 1924 to 1935, where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
In those years he created a whole series of animals, inspired by his many visits to the Parisian zoo, the Jardin des Plantes.

The Tate Gallery has a 1927 Bengal Tiger by Raoh Schorr in their collection. This was purchased at the 1937 exhibition of the Redfern Gallery in London where he first exhibited his series of animals made during his stay in Paris.
Schorr informed the Tate Gallery when purchasing that only 2 copies of the Bengal tiger had been cast, this was because his founder had died in Paris and the plaster casts of the entire series of animal figures had been lost.
It is unknown how many copies of the giraffe were cast, but there must not have been many.

The giraffe is signed with "Schorr" on the inside of the left front leg.

Biography:
Raoh Friedel Schorr , pseudonym of Fritz Gustav Schorr, (Switzerland, 1901-1991) was a versatile artist, he was a sculptor, painter, ceramist, designer and interior decorator.

He was very talented and started his education in 1916 at the Alg. Fachschule in Basel, in 1918 he also took a sculpture class with the sculptor Otto Klein (1879-1943).
From 1922 to 1924 he continued his education in Munich at the Hoffmannschule of Fine Arts, after which he also spent a semester in Geneva at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1924.

He then left for Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. He lived and worked in Paris until 1935.

In addition to his studies, he also worked for the fashion designer René Poiret, who was a great art lover. He also designed wigs for the Polish star hairdresser Monsieur Antoine de Paris (Antoni Cierplikowski). Extravagant wigs were designed for Sarah Bernhardt, Coco Chanel and many other famous names, among others. He worked also with the fashion designers René Piguet and Madeleine Vionnet.

Raoh Schorr was very much at home in the mundane and avant-garde world of the Roaring Twenties in Paris. It was during this period that he changed his name to Raoh.

In the second half of the 1920s, Schorr made a series of animal figures, which were inspired by his many visits to the Parisian zoo, the Jardin des Plantes. He exhibited this series of animal figures in 1937 in the Redfern Gallery, London. He had moved to London in 1936 and established his name as a sculptor with this exhibition.

The Tate Gallery then purchased the 1927 Bengal Tiger. The Bengal tiger is still part of their collection.

In 1937, Raoh Schorr also designed a series of animal figures for Royal Doulton. These are highly sought after by art collectors.

But Raoh Schorr has also been active in other areas since moving to London. In 1939 he opened his own studio (the Bolton studio) as a window dresser, where he created interior decorations for exhibitions and made sculptures for film and theatre. He also designed fabrics. He soon had 12 people working for him in the Bolton Studio, producing porcelain figurines and decorative objects based on his designs. Clients included Harrods and Elizabeth Arden of Bally.

In the 1960s, Schorr stopped decorating shop windows and limited himself to watercolour painting and sculpting ceramics.
His work was loved by art lovers. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Great Britain and Switzerland.

In 1988, Raoh Schorr returned to Switzerland because of his old age. He lived with his sister and her family until his death in 1991.


Literature:
- Hildegard Gantner-Schlee; 'Raoh Schorr, 1901-1988, Muttenz-Paris-London, ein Künstlerleben', Lieslal Verlag des Kanton Basel-Landschaft, 1995.
- Ronald Alley, Catalog of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, reproduced p. 675.
- Redfern GalleryLondon; Exh: Sculptures, Bronzes and drawings of animals by Raoh Schorr' December 1937.
- Catalogue Royal Doulton: 'Animal studies ... Modeled by Raoh Schorr', 1937.

Condition

Excellent