by Josef Sieben (1914 – 1985)
Photo: Max Schulz 2019
The core of the group, the Holy Family, has been part of the furnishings of Liebfrauen since 1940 and was transferred to the new church in 1961.
During the Christmas season, the figures—made of coarsely carved, now heavily darkened oak wood—are illuminated and displayed facing outwards in the main entrance. The photo, however, was taken in the staircase leading to the upper church.
The artist Josef Sieben spent most of his life on the Lower Rhine. He lived a secluded and very modest life. His works were seen in only a few exhibitions. Nativity scenes and figures of the Virgin Mary were among his preferred sculptural works. So, it is no coincidence that a similar nativity scene—dating from 1938—can be found in the Liebfrauenkirche in Duisburg-Hochheide. The nativity scene of the Liebfrauen church in Duisburg-Mitte, featuring three shepherds and the Three Wise Men, was not complete until Christmas or Epiphany 1946/47. For Sieben – a pacifist Catholic – had to serve in the Wehrmacht from August 1940 until the summer of 1945.
The artist worked—without formal academic training—in the tradition of an expressionism characterized by Ernst Barlach and his block-like, self-contained figures. Sieben did not deny its closeness to Barlach. In his sculptures, the extraordinary figures of the Christmas story stand before ordinary people, their emotions rendered unmistakably visible in facial expression and bodily posture. Sieben himself once put his working style, half-jokingly: „Quite simple: chop away whatever is too much.“ What has been observed about Barlach’s work applies equally to Sieben’s figures: you can still see the marks of making on the wooden sculptures. The resulting surface reflects incident light in different directions.
Reference:
Meyers, Fritz: Jupp Sieben. Ein Lebensbild, in: Fährmann, Willi u.a.: Kinderspiele – Menschenträume: alte Kinderspiele am Niederrhein, Brendow-Verlag, Moers 1996, p. 108 – 116.
