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The Other Kroners
 
Kurt's 'Gerhart Hauptman Portrait'  
 
Art was fundamental in the Kroner family.
Thomas' sister, 'Dodo', was an artist, and so was their mother Ella. 
 
The most famous member of the family, however, was the father Kurt, whom the NY Times Paul Miller called 'A Philosopher in clay'.
 
Kurt's works were exhibited mainly in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. The following biographical essay about him appears on the museum site (the source can be seen here) 
 
...The documentary material of and works by the Berlin sculptor Kurt Kroner (Breslau 1885-1929 Munich), his son Thomas Kroner (Munich 1909-1992 Beith Hashitah, Israel), and his daughter Dodo Kroner (Berlin 1912-2006 Stuttgart), represent a new acquisition for the Museum's art collection. The Kroners were a Silesian family of rabbis and doctors. In 1909, shortly before the birth of their son Thomas, Kurt Kroner and his wife Ella were baptized, but later on  confessed to a "Religion of humanity".  Kurt Kroner's children, Thomas and Dodo, both managed to leave the country. Their mother, the painter Ella Behrend (Stettin 1885-1942 Auschwitz), stayed in Berlin, and was deported to Auschwitz in 1942.
 
 
'Schwbender' ('The Hover'), Kurt Kroner, bronze, Berlin 1919
 

'Der Einsame' ('The Lonely')

 
Kurt Kroner studied medicine before he began to sculpt, encouraged by August Rodin, and advanced by Adolf Hildebrand. Throughout his career, his work was characterized by a close connection to philosophy. His political and artistic self-conception were shaped by the reform movement, and the utopian ideas following the cultural breakdown after the First World War. He was close friend with Ernst Toller and Werner Sombart, Ferdinand Tönnies, Gerhart Hauptmann, Karl Liebknecht and Erich Mühsam, whose busts he sculpted.
The bronze miniatures "Schwebender," and "Der Einsame," donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin by his daughter and granddaughter (Dodo and Marion Kroner), are expressions of human states and ecstatic gestures.
"Aufgang," "Der Wächter," and "Moses" are other pieces from this group of works.
Works by Kurt Kroner are now also owned by the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg, the National Gallery, the German Historical Museum, and the Mishkan le'Omanut Museum of Art in Ein Harod, Israel.
One of his few surviving life-size sculptures can be found on his grave in the Südwestkirchhof in Stahnsdorf, the bust of Gerhart Hauptmann in the entrance hall of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.
 
 

 Portrait of Kurt Kroner, Berlin 1920