Gerda Frömel


Gerda Frömel was a sculptor, born in Czechoslovakia and later living in Austria and Germany, later still active for an extended period in Ireland.

Personal life

Gerda Frömel was born in Czechoslovakia in 1931, the eldest of four daughters to an Austrian mother and German father. Her parents were forcibly required to leave shortly after the Second World War, in 1945, and try to return to Germany as refugees. They tried to settle in Austria and finally in Stuttgart.
Frömel studied sculpture at the Arts Schools in Stuttgart, Darmstadt and Munich from 1948-1952.
Frömel met Werner Schürmann while in college in Munich. They married in 1955 and moved to Ireland in 1956, as Schürmann had been offered a post teaching metalwork at the National College of Art and Design.
The couple lived in Woodtown Park, outside Rathfarnham where Schürmann started a foundry. They had four sons and a daughter. Tragically their daughter died aged two in a drowning accident. In 1966 Schürmann left Ireland and went back to Germany to become an opera singer. They didn't formally split for some years after, hoping to make the arrangement work.
Frömel's work, which achieved critical acclaim, ended in August 1975 when she died in a drowning accident.

Exhibiting and Awards

It was in Ireland that she began to exhibit her work. She worked on commissions including a particularly well-known piece called Sails for P.J.Carroll and Son, Dundalk. This was, at the time, the largest private sculptural commission in Ireland. Frömel also worked in stained glass for churches in Ireland and Germany, including a stained glass-window at St Brigid's Cathedral, Kildare. In 1957 she began to annually exhibit in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, while in 1962 and 1963 she exhibited at the Independent Artists Exhibition 1962 and 1963. In 1964 and 1970 she had a solo exhibition in The Dawson Gallery, and a joint show there with Michael Scott in 1967.
Frömel won the Arts Council sculpture scholarship, the sculpture prize in the Irish Church Art Exhibition and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland award in 1962. She was awarded the Oireachtas awards Waterford Glass Company Award in 1970. In 1973 she won a gold medal Oireachtas award for sculpture.