Edition in bronze, cast in the lost wax process, chased by hand and patinated.

Emil Jo Homolka (1925 - 2010)

Emil Johannes Homolka, who was called exclusively "Jo" by friends and good acquaintances, discovered and practiced his sculptural skills early on: Already the twelve-year-old had insight into the art academy and found there in Karl Hils an art teacher and work teacher who encouraged him to the best of his ability. In 1946, after war and imprisonment, he met Hils again at the Art Academy in Stuttgart as a student of sculpture, and was originally even supposed to take over the chair of his early patron after 10 semesters. 

That things turned out differently had to do with the fact that Homolka wanted to gain more teaching experience beforehand and therefore first moved to the Zinzendorf schools in Königsfeld, where he was entrusted with the rebuilding of modern art instruction as an educator and work teacher. The short-term teaching phase turned into 35 years; Homolka not only renounced the chair he had been offered in Stuttgart for this occupation as an art teacher, which was so dear to him, but also turned down further calls to academic positions.

Homolka enjoyed the dual role of patient teacher and freelance sculptor; in addition to his teaching activities, he produced an extensive body of sculptural work that was widely recognized early on and won awards. He worked in bronze, wood, concrete and stainless steel, often commissioned by churches and municipalities and for social institutions and industrial areas. Stylistically, the artist was concerned with both abstract problems of form and the shaping of representational sculptures. Today his work is not only spread all over Germany, but many of his sculptures can also be found in Switzerland, France, Poland, the USA and even in Australia.

Homolka's main sculptural works include, for example, sculptures in the chapel "Zum guten Hirten" on the Bihler Höhe, in the foyer of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin or a huge sculptural partition weighing 100 tons in front of the Federal Research Institute for Viral Diseases in Tübingen. Last but not least, he has left his mark as a sacral artist - there are even churches, such as St. Mark's Church in Villigen, that are almost completely furnished with his work.

A lifelong focus of Homolka's work was animal sculpture. The fascination for the creatureliness of the animal world accompanied him into his late work, and it is reported that Homolka specifically hired himself out as a shepherd for some time in order to have the opportunity for extensive animal observations with a view to a later artistic form.