Heri Bert Bartscht Papers

Heri Bert Bartscht (1919-1996) was a German born sculptor who studied for six years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and was a two-time recipient of the City of Munich Scholarship. He and his wife Waltraud, a fashion designer, moved to Dallas in 1953, and his artistic career continued to thrive and garner distinction. In 1954, Bartscht received the top award at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts annual art exhibition. He quickly became involved with the local art community and founded the Dallas Society for the Contemporary Arts, the parent organization of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts. Bartscht remained a trustee of the DMCA until 1961. In 1958 Bartscht helped create a private school of art in Dallas and in 1961 was asked to establish a sculpture program at the University of Dallas, which led to an almost thirty year teaching career at the university (1961-1990). As Sculptor Professor and eventually Head of the Division of Art, Music, Speech, and Drama at the University of Dallas, Bartscht taught art students about his techniques in sculpting out of wood, stone, clay, and bronze. His sculptures were often influenced by his devout religious beliefs. In 1957, he designed the porte chochere sculptures at 3525 Turtle Creek, the first high-rise apartment building in Dallas. His work was featured in seven solo exhibitions and in 1962 Bartscht designed the Arete award for the Titche's department stores, an award to honor excellence in the fashion industry. During the same year, he designed sets for a Dallas production of the Three Penny opera. One of his sculptures, The Graduate, is still on display in front of the library at Texas A&M University in College Station. Bartscht served as Chairman of the Council for German Day in Texas in 1963. In addition to these diverse projects, Bartscht completed over fifty commissions for churches in the Southwest. As a devout Roman Catholic, Bartscht had always been attracted to liturgical art. In 1972, he created the double life size Crucifixion for the Sacred Heart Cathedral on Ross Avenue in Dallas and in 1982 he constructed the rooster bell tower for the First United Lutheran Church on Mockingbird Lane. In 1988 he designed the bronze stations in the cross for the sanctuary of St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas, and also created the life-size statue of Christ at St. Rita's Catholic Church in Fort Worth. He participated in nine exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts between 1954 and 1963 and served as juror of an exhibition of the Federation of Dallas Artists at the DMFA in 1956. In 1969 he wrote a book on his art: Twenty Years of My Sculpture. Bartscht died in 1996 after a five-year struggle with Parkinson's disease. He had one child, a son, Martin Bartscht.