Lilli Kerzinger-Werth

Lilli Kerzinger-Werth, born on September 1, 1897, in Milan, was a German animal sculptor and painter. She was the daughter of the merchant Wilhelm Friedrich Werth and his wife, Bertha, née Schütze. In 1915, during World War I, her family fled to Zurich and settled in Frankfurt am Main in 1917. In 1922, she married the sculptor Karl Kerzinger, and the couple subsequently moved to Stuttgart.

In Milan, Lilli Kerzinger-Werth took private lessons starting in 1903 with Professor A. Martignoni and, from 1912, with the sculptor Ernesto Bazzaro. Between 1915 and 1917, she studied under Frau Bäumer in Zurich and from 1917 to 1919, she studied art history and perspective with Augusto Varnesi at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt. While studying, she also worked as a drawing teacher from 1916 to 1918. From 1919 to 1927, she continued her education at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied under Ludwig Habich and ultimately became a master student.

Karl Kerzinger passed away in 1959 at the age of 69. Lilli Kerzinger-Werth outlived him by 12 years and died on November 4, 1971, at the age of 74. She and her husband were buried in the Fangelsbach Cemetery in Stuttgart, which was cleared in 1998.

In the public space of Stuttgart, four sculptures by Lilli Kerzinger-Werth can be found: a pair of bears at the Bärenschlössle, a foal on the Killesberg, the salamander of the Salamander Fountain, and the Rohrer Bear at Rohrer Lake in Stuttgart-Rohr. In her monograph “Künstlerinnen in Württemberg,” Edith Neumann mentions several other sculptures in public spaces in Stuttgart and other locations, though their preservation is not documented.