Biography
Little is known about the youth and education of young Josef. It is assumed that the sculptor first completed his training in the artistic ore foundry in the Vienna Arsenal. Even his early designs testified to his brilliance. This is how the Friedrich Goldscheider ceramics manufactory became aware of him and offered him to work for the company, beginning a very successful collaboration on a royalty basis in the early 1920s. Designs for the Austrian and German manufacturers Keramos, Vienna, Hartwig & Co., Katzhütte and Julius Griesbach, Cortendorf were to follow later.
Lorenzl found his models above all in the pulsating world of theater and cabaret and portrayed the cheeky - mostly - ladies in swinging dance poses. His most famous model is probably the 'Captive Bird', portrayed by the dancer and actress Niddy Impekoven (Berlin 1904 - 2002 Bad Ragaz). Designed around 1922, the female figure in a costume with wide, wing-forming sleeves was offered by Goldscheider in both ceramic and bronze. Some of Lorenzl's dancers were also executed in chryselephantine. After the artist's sudden death, his widow Anna (Njura) Lorenzl decreed that all of her husband's models were to be destroyed, as a result, his works are hotly contested by enthusiasts today.
