Wilhelm Wandschneider

Wilhelm Georg Johannes Wandschneider (6 June 1866, Plau am See – 23 September 1942, Plau am See) was a German sculptor.

His father was a commercial decorative painter. At an early age, he began an after-school apprenticeship in the family workshop, taking advantage of a few free hours for more artistic endeavors. In 1885, after having served as an assistant on a trip to and Güstrow, his father gave him permission to go to Berlin and look for work.

The Mayor of Plau had seen some of Wandschneider's artistic work and was impressed, so he attempted to arrange a scholarship. After securing recommendations from Ludwig Brunow and Martin Wolff the Mayor sent a letter to Grand Duke Frederick Francis III, who granted Wandschneider a personal gift of 150 Marks to study at the Prussian Academy of Art. After passing the entrance exam in 1886, he studied with Albert Wolff, Paul Friedrich Meyerheim, Fritz Schaper and Gerhard Janensch. He also gained practical experience working in the studios of Burnow, Martin Wolff, Karl Hilgers and Ernst Herter and Martin Wolff. In 1895, he became a Master Student of Reinhold Begas but didn't remain long, having won a prize from the "Philip von Rohr Foundation" which enabled him to study in Italy for a year. While there, he met his future wife, Anna Kreß, who was working as a model.

Full of confidence upon his return to Berlin, he was determined to achieve success as a free-lance sculptor, participating in several contests for monument and fountain designs. By 1898, he had won three major commissions. In 1899, through his friend Constantin Starck, he met Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg, who liked his work and placed several orders. His career truly took off after that point and the years 1897 to 1916 proved to be his most successful. Buoyed by the positive reception he received at the St.Louis World's Fair in 1904, he entered competitions for monuments in places as diverse as Manila, Cape Town and Quito, but to no avail. He finally received an order for a monument to Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly in Riga and was proffered an invitation to compete for a monument in St.Louis that would be dedicated to the German-American journalists Carl Schurz, Emil Preetorius and Carl Daenzer. He won the contract with a figure called "The Naked Truth".

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