He went too high and took the light of the sun from the earth; everything became ice. He went too low and all the power of the sun burned the earth. The earth goddess Gaia asked Zeus for help. God-father Zeus sent a thunderbolt and plunged him into Eridanos. His sisters, the Heliads, wept for him on the banks of the river. As punishment, Zeus turned them into trees. Their tears became amber.

Manuel Donato Diez (1957)

Donato Diez, son of a painter and a painter, sculptor and stage designer, went through an apprenticeship as a stone sculptor in Frankfurt after an apprenticeship with his father in Berlin 1975-1976. He attended the Städelschule in Frankfurt and between 1977-1985 worked as a wood and stone restorer at the Kaiserdom and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt as well as in Freiburg and Hanover. Since 1985 he has been a freelance sculptor. 

The sculptural work of the Spaniard is permeated by biblical themes. Large sculptures from his hands can be found in many churches and sacred buildings, ranging from large-scale figures of Christ (Friedenskirche Hannover, Michaeliskirche Hildesheim) to the decoration of an entire chapel (Kaprun).

Donato Diez's work has won many awards; for many years, moreover, he has been available to the church as an expert advisor in artistic matters. Since 2008, the artist has been a member of the renowned Fondation Taylor and the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Paris), and since 2010 he has also been a member of Le Cercle des Artistes Peintres et Sculpteurs du Québec.

In his two studios in Nordstemmen and in Samois-sur-Seine (France), he creates figurative sculptures in oak and walnut, granite and bronze, whereby the artist knows how to extract a maximum of expressive power from each of these materials. The early work is characterized by an almost classical-traditional figurativeness; since his third decade of life, however, Donato Diez prefers a decidedly expressive, at times downright raw and coarse-looking pictorial style, whose - not least emotional - effect impresses and captivates the viewer again and again.