Ammerland on Lake Starnberg has always been a great fascination for artists.
The sculptor Ernst Grünwald also lives and works here.
Münsing
- The sculptor Ernst Grünwald is firmly rooted in Ammerland.
Born in Munich in 1956, he moved to Ammerland in 1958 to live with his grandparents.
The Grünwald family has lived on the east bank of Lake Starnberg for 400 years, first in Ambach, then in Ammerland.
Grünwald's grandfather already worked for the Counts of Pocci.
The grandson went back to Munich to go to school and study.
Even when he was still at school he liked to draw.
In 1976 he came to the bronze foundry in a roundabout way.
He did an apprenticeship at the Mayr foundry in Munich.
However, he was subsequently accepted at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts because of his drawings.
From 1979 to 1986 he studied sculpture there.
Grünwald was a master student in Erich Koch's class, where he graduated with a diploma.
The main focus of his work was and is bronze sculptures.
He also uses wood, stone and plaster.
From pencil sketch to bronze figure
Pencil sketches are still the first step on the long way to a clay, bronze or wooden figure.
The Ammerlander prefers to work objectively and naturalistically.
His sculptures are very precise observations of humans and animals.
Goats, dogs, cows, monkeys: there is hardly a living being that he has not yet approached artistically.
The figures convince in small as well as in monumental format, as a filigree dancer made of bronze or brass as well as a powerful, cigarette-smoking guy made of oak wood.
You can find them throughout the Bavarian region, for example the wooden sculpture “Der Sternengucker” from Blomberg, the “Bierkönig” from Andechs Monastery or the bronze plaque in honor of Count Pocci at the Ammerlander Schlosskapelle.
Close observer of humans and animals
In addition, Grünwald does commissioned work such as for honorary awards.
For the culture award of the city of Geretsried he made the bronze statuette "Dialog", for the Gabriel von Max monument award of the East Bank Protection Association he made the famous monkey who holds the Villa Max in his hands.
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In addition to the exhibitions, at which you never know how much you are selling, these works were used to earn a living, says the 64-year-old.
He has been involved in the Münsingen municipal council for years, until recently as third mayor, and in the Münsing energy transition.
The works are created in his workshop on Riedweg.
You can often hear the chainsaw rattling behind the house when another giant is being made from an oak trunk.
In between, Grünwald makes small drawings that he calls “finger exercises”.
They are flexible stick figures, painted with the fingertip soaked in color.
Although he is so versatile in terms of motifs, materials and formats, he once said: "If I look at the lake, I would rather be a painter than a sculptor."
Tanja Lühr
