“Kiepenkerl” by Jeff Koons references an 1896 sandstone sculpture of a traveling peddler or “Kiepenkerl” by August Schmiemann in Münster, Germany.
Koons’s replica sculpture was constructed of polished cast stainless steel and cast in 1987. The statue depicts a full-length figure of a man, with a basket on his back, and a basket at the ground near his right leg, all in shiny finish surfaces.
The original Kiepenkerl sculpture was destroyed during World War II and was re-created in cast metal by Albert Mazzotti Jr in 1953.
The replacement statue now stands in a small square in the Old Quarter of Münster, Germany.
The original monument symbolized the man who comes to town from the country with produce to sell in his basket carried on the back. He may be a tenant farmer or a traveling peddler and symbolizes a traditional and popular image from the early 1800s.
Jeffrey “Jeff” Koons
Jeffrey “Jeff” Koons is known for working with popular culture subjects and his reproductions of everyday objects.
He is widely known for his balloon animal sculptures produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces.
Kiepenkerl
- Title: Kiepenkerl
- Artist: Jeff Koons
- Year: 1987
- Medium: Stainless steel
- Dimensions: 72 3/4 × 31 1/2 × 32 1/4 in., 550 lb. (184.8 × 80 × 81.9 cm, 249.5 kg)
- Museum: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Jeff Koons
- Name: Jeff Koons
- Born: 1955 – York, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- Nationality: American
- Notable work
- Kiepenkerl
A Tour of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- “The Burghers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin
- “Kiepenkerl” by Jeff Koons
- “The Figure” by Jacques Lipchitz
- “The Great Warrior of Montauban” by Antoine Bourdelle
Museums in Washington, D.C. – Virtual Tours
- National Gallery of Art
- National Museum of American History
- National Air and Space Museum
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- National Museum of Natural History
- National Portrait Gallery
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- The Phillips Collection
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- International Spy Museum
Top 10 Museums in America
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art or MET, New York City
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- The Philadelphia Museum of Art
- National Air and Space Museum, New York City
- American Museum of Natural History, New York City
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“I invent nothing, I rediscover.”
– Auguste Rodin
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Photo Credit: By Jeff KoonsAgnosticPreachersKid (Own work) [Public domain or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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