Wilhelm Lehmbruck transformed early twentieth-century sculpture by stretching the human form into elongated, melancholy figures that seemed to carry the weight of an entire civilization on their shoulders. Born on January 4, 1881, in Meiderich, a coal mining district that later became part of Duisburg, he was the fourth of eight children born to a miner. Despite the family's modest means, his talent was recognized early, and he enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Düsseldorf at 14. His early work was rooted in classical realism, influenced by Auguste Rodin, but a move to Paris in 1910 changed everything. Exposure to the work of Aristide Maillol, Constantin Brâncuși, and the emerging Expressionist movement pushed Lehmbruck toward the distorted, emotionally charged figures that became his signature. "Kneeling Woman," completed in 1911, established him internationally. The figure's impossibly long limbs and bowed posture conveyed grief without any narrative context. During World War I, Lehmbruck served as a hospital orderly in Berlin, an experience that deepened the sense of suffering in his later work. "Fallen Man," created in 1915-16, depicted a collapsed figure that became one of the most powerful anti-war sculptures of the century. The Nazis later declared his work "degenerate" and removed it from German museums. Lehmbruck suffered from severe depression throughout the war years and took his own life in Berlin on March 25, 1919, at age 38. His influence on Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, and subsequent generations of figurative sculptors has been profound and enduring.