15Kleine Erntehelferin

Gerhard Rommel was born in 1934 in Shalkau in Thuringia. He studied ceramic modeling at the Technical School for Applied Arts in Sonneberg from 1948 to 1951. From 1952 to 1958 he continued his studies at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin-Weissensee. Starting in 1958 he earned his living as a free-lance sculptor, medalist, coin designer and painter. His works were widely exhibited at exhibitions in the GDR. Rommel‘s main works are sculptors, but he also made medals and belonged to an artists‘ association of medalists in Berlin. He also designed memorial coins for the GDR. He died in 2014 in Gransee.

This work depicts a life-sized figure of a young woman, cast in bronze on a cube-shaped base of masonry surrounded by plants. The woman is standing upright and carries a basket full of harvested plants. She is wearing a sleeveless dress. Her hair is bound in a ponytail, and she has bangs. She is looking straight ahead, into the distance, with a slight smile.

The sculpture can be seen as a tribute to women who worked the fields. In the context of a biomedical research campus, she may also represent all of the women who carry out vital work in its laboratories, clinics, and research institutes, as researchers, laboratory scientists, technicians, animal care officers or in the administration.

Rommel created the form in 1958, which was cast in bronze in 1960 and placed on the campus. The piece was commissioned with public funds.