Robert Ortlieb

Robert Ortlieb (1925–2011) was an accomplished American sculptor born in San Diego, CA. His works in stone — alabaster, lapis lazuli, marble, and onyx — alongside bronze, rare wood, terracotta, and plexiglass have been exhibited in more than 80 museums and galleries in the United States and abroad.

Ortlieb received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California (USC), studying sculpture under Robert Merrell Gage and drawing and painting under Francis de Erdely.

Ortlieb's work transcended traditional artistic taxonomy. Author Norman Corwin observed: "Ortlieb makes a solid virtue of passion regardless of modes, media, substance, and treatment; that he charges his materials with so much energy and emotion that they breathe, swirl, rise, fall, and replicate; that with uncommon vigor he compounds pain, ecstasy, tension, and mystery. Not the least astonishing aspect of Ortlieb is his versatility. I am aware of no other painter or sculptor, including some of the most notable of the past or present, who exceeds his range or expresses as many moods or emotions."

Ortlieb received numerous accolades, such as winning the prestigious California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition five times throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work was featured in one-man shows and exhibitions in major museums, including the Crocker Art Museum, Riverside Art Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Laguna Art Museum, The Edward-Dean Museum, the Pasadena Art Institute (now Norton Simon Museum) and the Denver Art Museum.

Robert Ortlieb was born in San Diego in 1925 to William Ortlieb and Ruth Powers Ortlieb, a notable California Modernist painter and teacher. Ruth Ortlieb received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont College while studying under Millard Sheets and taught art at San Diego State College. She joined Dorr Bothwell, Donal Hord, and Everett Gee Jackson among others to form a group known as the "San Diego Moderns." She traveled extensively and exhibited widely during the 1930s, including at the San Diego Fine Art Gallery, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Pasadena Art Institute, the California Pacific International Exposition, and the Golden Gate International Exhibition.

Robert Ortlieb attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles where his art teacher urged him to pursue formal education in the arts. This led him to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts at USC. Here he became a protégé of renowned sculptor Robert Merrell Gage and also studied under Francis de Erdely, Edgar Ewing, and Glen Lukens. The influence of Gage and de Erdely in particular, is evident in Ortlieb's art, which combines a solid grasp of human form, with an abstract and modernist sensibility.

Following graduate school, Ortlieb traveled throughout Mexico and South America, introducing him to the primitive and megalithic artwork of the region. He then journeyed to Europe where he engrossed himself in Michelangelo's stone sculpture along with the wood carvings of German Renaissance masters.

Throughout his youth and adulthood, Ortlieb also made frequent trips into the High Sierras and Canadian Rockies. Ortlieb once commented: "I could really feel the excitement of the elements in those remote places. It was like an explosion in the mind's eye." Painter and art historian Janice Lovoos stated "His early confrontations with nature are reflected in his sculptures. They soar into enveloping space. We catch a glimpse of the rhythm of the universe."

Robert Ortlieb's career spanned more than six decades. During this time Ortlieb fulfilled commissions for public and private patrons in a variety of mediums.

A selection of public installations includes:

• Apothecaries bronze relief at the University of Southern California Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Mother and Child monumental abstract bronze at the Costa Mesa-Donald Dungan Library plaza
• Etheric Male at the University of California, Riverside Tomás Rivera Library
• Etheric Female at Riverside Community College
• Mother and Child, a 9-foot figurative terrcotta piece at The Neighborhood Church of Palos Verdes, California

A partial list of awards includes:

• 1965 California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition sculpture winner for Todtentanz, a haunting abstract rendition of two skeletal figures engaged in a "dance of death", inspired by the Holocaust.
• 1966 California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition winner for Group of Four.
• 1967 California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition winner for Portrait of Maria.
• 1968 California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition winner for The Medium, an evocative 14-inch pink alabaster carving.
• 1971 California Art Club Annual Juried Exhibition winner for Fire Madonna, an 18-inch pink and red-orange alabaster carving
• 1953 Juried exhibition award winner, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego (now San Diego Museum of Art).
• Several First-Place Awards for Sculpture, California State Fair (1940s and 1950s).
• 1957 juried exhibition award winner, National Orange Show.

In addition to sculpture, Ortlieb produced an extensive body of drawings using India ink and colored pencils. Some of his earlier sketches touched on biblical and mythological themes. And in the 1970s and 1980s this work manifested in dozens of fantastical renderings on outer space and alien beings, which he titled Etheric Visions.

Robert Ortlieb was also well known for engaging lecture-demonstrations that showcased his provocative artistic process. Ortlieb garnered a devoted following among students at diverse venues including University of Southern California (USC) Idyllwild Arts Foundation, Loma Linda University, Palos Verdes Arts Center, Riverside Art Museum, Palm Springs Village Center for the Arts, and the Institute Professionale de Stato per l'Industria de l'Artigianato del Marmo in Carrara, Italy.

In recognition of his professional standing, expertise, and reputation, Ortlieb was invited to judge a number of juried art exhibitions, including the Beverly Hills Art Show, the Orange County Fair Fine Arts Competition, and the Pasadena Outdoor Arts Fair (multiple occasions).

Arthur Millier, art critic for the Los Angeles Times: "I spotted one work of superb wood carving, Robert Ortlieb's 'Todtentanz' or Dance of Death. Two skeletons, the macabre dance rhythm carried through to the last gouge mark. You can bet your last buck it won't win a prize. It doesn't fit any modern category. It's JUST ART."

Carolyn Strickler, art critic for the Los Angeles Examiner and historian for the Los Angeles Times: "The Martyr, done in redwood burl, one of the most difficult woods in the world to work with, is Ortlieb's newest sculpture.. one of the most impressive examples of his depth of imagination, craftsmanship, and considerable talent..(it) successfully embodies concepts of major importance which have concerned Robert Ortlieb for almost ten years."

Janice Lovoos, author and art historian: "He carves beyond what he is able to express in words. In his more complex pieces, he makes ample use of incarving, an incredibly difficult technique in which he works from the inside out - opening up the inner structure of the material. In this remarkable manner he may carve miniscule heads out of other carved heads, faces within eyes, mouths within mouths, or an arabesque of figures. Vitality springs from every form. HIs work may boggle the mind, stretch the imagination to new limits. What is he trying to tell us? In essence, he is attempting to portray the eternal struggle of man to better the human condition. To exchange an unsatisfying material state of consciousness for a real and lasting spiritual awareness."

Ortlieb married Donna Forman Ortlieb in 1976. Donna Ortlieb danced professionally for Pacific Ballet Theatre and toured briefly with Holiday on Ice. She later became an attorney and practiced criminal law in Southern California. They raised Donna's two children from a previous marriage, Adam Ortlieb and Sarah Fraser.

In 1957 a nine-foot walnut statue by Ortlieb of the Crucifixion of Jesus entitled "For They Know Not What They Do" was placed in Westwood Community Methodist Church. Ortlieb described it as including "every conflict imaginable: life and death, good and evil, intense suffering and a powerful spiritual message". In March of that year associate pastor Dr. Alfred W. Painter said there had been objections to the sculpture but that its overall impact had been positive.^[1] The next month, however, Ortlieb was told to remove the work "in the interest of the congregation". Painter said he wished the sculpture could remain, but that "its effectiveness made the congregation uncomfortable". Ortlieb said "If one person got the message I have instilled in the statue I feel I have accomplished what I wanted to do."^[2]

In 1998, Ortlieb's bronze sculpture "Emergence", which was then on loan to the city of Oceanside, California and displayed in the foyer of the city's Planning Department, was mysteriously covered with a curtain or drapery material. In 2000 the same work, which weighs 480 pounds and was completed in 1979, was included in an exhibition at the Palos Verdes Art Center entitled "Big Sculpture".

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