Will Sohl 1906 – 1969

Born in Ludwigshafen and raised in Mannheim, Will Sohl was supported early on by the directors of the Kunsthalle Mannheim Gustav F. Hartlaub, Walter Passarge, and Fritz Wichert. Together with his best friend, the artist Joachim Lutz, he took an active part in the cultural life of the city of Heidelberg after the Second World War. Sylt, Iceland, the Lofoten – these were the places of his longing, his treasured destinations: landscapes, that he captured in brightly watercolors and on magnificent canvases. Will Sohl also found his motifs in his nearby surroundings, for example in the garden of the porter’s lodge of Stift Neuburg, where the artist had lived with his family since 1936. But there also was another side to Will Sohl: He worked for the architect Otto Bartning, created mosaics for churches and public buildings, designed church windows and book covers for the S. Fischer publishing house. He also worked as an illustrator for newspapers and was a stage designer at the theater. This book documents a life full of contradictions and tensions and makes accessible the artist’s wide-ranging oeuvre for the first time since 1970.