Thomas Reichstein

Thomas Reichstein grewup in Halle an der Saale in a geologist’sfamily. After a gardening apprenticeship in Leipzig, he studied landscape architecture at the TU in Dresden and, until his diploma in 1990, sculpture at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.

Time and again he goes to work on longer trips abroad, sometimes he returns regularly to Ghana, Papua New Guinea or Thailand to work as a freelance sculptor. He learns other techniques in wood sculptors or in a Buddamanufactory.

In consequence, Thomas Reichstein developed a special type of rattan bark sculptures. In 1997, he won a competition from the Semper Opera Dresden for a prize sculpture, which has been awarded several times a year. The jury was convinced by the balance of abstraction and objectivity. Thus the reference succeeded in combining music, song and dance, asequal basic elements of opera. Since then, Reichstein has received further orders for award sculptures from politics and business (for example, the Dresdner Marketing Prize, the MTM Award). Since 2006, Thomas Reichstein has increasingly turned to the human figure. For example, in 2009, he created a group of Nereid figures, inspired by classical Greek models from the British Museum in London. In Jena, his sculptures “Big Fish” and “Saalewelle” characterize the newly designed banks of the Saale.