Fritz Koenig (20 June 1924 – 22 February 2017) was a German sculptor best known outside his native country for The Sphere, which once stood in the plaza between the two World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan but which now stands, its damage deliberately left unrepaired, in Manhattan's Liberty Park as a memorial to the victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks. His oeuvre includes other works, including other memorials.Born in Würzburg, Koenig's family moved to the Bavarian community of Landshut when he was six. In the years after World War II he studied art at the Kunstakademie München (Munich School of Art), graduating in 1952. Nine years later he moved to Ganslberg, a farming community outside Landshut where he lived and worked on a horse farm. In 1964 he was appointed professor of art at the Technical University of Munich. He died in Landshut on 22 February 2017, aged 92.oenig's body of work largely consists of figures or shapes assembled from simple geometric forms cast in metal. His representions of human form are heavily stylized, with heads made of spheres and bodies and limbs of cylinders. His Holocaust memorial design exemplifies this, adding bones poured on a mound.Wikipedia
Fritz Koenig, a German sculptor whose work “The Sphere” became a symbol of resilience after the 9/11 attacks in New York, has died. He was 92.
Koenig, a well-known artist thanks to his distinctive large statues and sculptures, created the ball-shaped bronze over a four-year period starting in 1967.
Originally called "Grosse Kugelkaryatide N.Y.," the 25-foot-high sculpture stood at the foot of the World Trade Center from 1971 until Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda hijackers flew airliners into the twin towers.It was recovered from the rubble — heavily dented but structurally intact — and was moved to Battery Park, where it now stands alongside an eternal flame dedicated to the people who died in the attack. A plaque notes that the sculpture was conceived as a symbol of world peace.(latimes.com)
