Robert Koenig (sculptor)

Robert Koenig (born 1951) is an English sculptor, who specialises in wood sculpture and is a prominent exponent of the art of woodcarving using the traditional tools of mallet and chisel. He is known for his carved and polychromed figurative wood sculptures, which he has been creating since the early 1980s. One of the earliest polychromed figures was shown in the 'Temple' exhibition at the Shaw Theatre, London in 1988.

In 1992 the artist Craigie Horsfield wrote: "Koenig drew from the culture of carving that was rooted in the folk art of Central Europe; a naturalist depiction of the world with mythic overtones. It is no coincidence that the small renaissance of wood carving apparent in Europe should have happened in Germany; in our century the focus of the long struggle of nationalism and mystery. It was given impetus and found acceptance through the painted wood sculpture of Georg Baselitz. In the line of Kirchner's expressionist figures the wood is scarred and the heads, excessive and gestural, have pigment dragged across them. They came out of the expressionist tradition but made space effectively for other artists to be seen. The most visible of these has been Stefan Balkenhol, an artist making naturalistic painted figures acknowledging a tradition of Central European village carving. It is against this background that Robert Koenig works." (from the catalogue "Robert Koenig sculpture")

Koenig was born in Manchester of Polish immigrants. He made his first carving as a pupil at the Polish Seminary School, 5 Rue des Irlandais, Paris from 1963 to 1970. He witnessed the student rioters burning cars outside the school in the student riots in Paris in 1968, and remembers playing volleyball with Cardinal Wojtyla of Krakow, the later Pope John Paul II who was a frequent visitor to the Seminary. The building is now the Irish Cultural Centre and was previously the Irish College in Paris. He graduated from Brighton Polytechnic with First Class Honours in Fine Art in 1976. In 1978 he obtained a Higher Diploma of Postgraduate Sculpture at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, London; he was a contemporary of Antony Gormley, as both attended that school from 1976 to 1978. He won the Boise Travel Bursary in 1978, and in 1983 a scholarship to the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, Poland.

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