""JUNGES EUROPA"" BY ARNO BREKER Striking cast bronze statue Junges Europa (""Young Europe"") by German sculptor ARNO BREKER. This intense work depicts the head of a hawk upon a muscular man's standing body 69cm. tall. German record-holding Olympic swimmer Walter Kusch stood as the model for this sculpture which in some catalogs incorporates his name. Many believe Breker named his work in honor of the ""Junges Europa"" revolutionary movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1834. The movement gained strength in Germany Italy and Poland seeking a more democratic Europe based on its motto: ""Liberty Equality Humanity"". Critics claim that the sculpture resembles the Egyptian god Horus and that Breker sculpted this god of war of war and the hunt having never reformed his past pro-Nazi pro-militaristic mentality. Breker himself declared: ""United Europe does not have a face yet."" From a series of 300 pieces cast in 1979. Conversations with Breker expert Joe Bodenstein and his sun Marco indicate that in actuality less than 100 casts may have been made. Breker's widow Charlotte Breker won a legal procedure in 2012 allowing her to reclaim all Breker sculptures back from the Bodensteins and common belief holds that additional casts of this piece will not be made as neither the widow nor the family appears to have any such desire. The last such example from this same series sold in Germany last year for over 17 000 Euros. Arno Breker (1900 - 1991) was best known for his public works in Nazi Germany which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of ""degenerate art"". During his time in Paris in the twenties and early thirties he was influenced by Jean Cocteau Jean Renoir Pablo Picasso and Aristide Maillol who was later to describe Breker as “Germany's Michelangelo”. His twin sculptures The Party and The Army held prominent positions at the entrance to Albert Speer's new Reichs Chancellery. Arno Breker was represented at the Great German Art Exhibitions with 42 works. On the surface the neoclassical nature of Breker's work typified Nazi ideals. On closer inspection though the proportions of his figures the highly colorful treatment of his surfaces (the strong contrasts between dark and light accents) and the melodramatic tension of their musculatures perhaps invites comparison with the Italian Mannerist sculptors of the 16th century. While nearly all of his sculptures survived World War II more than 90% of his public work was destroyed by the Allies after the war. In 1946 Breker was offered a commission by Joseph Stalin but he refused and stated “One dictatorship is sufficient for me”. After the war he continued to receive commissions for sculptures producing a number of works in his familiar classical style working for businesses and individual patrons.