Hermann Noack

Hermann Noack is a German art foundry (German: Bildgießerei) in Berlin, named after its original proprietor and his three direct descendants, all with the same name, who have run the business. Most of its works are cast in bronze.

Hermann Noack foundry in Charlottenburg

Nameplate of the Hermann Noack art foundry

The company was founded by Hermann Noack in 1897, with early support from the sculptors August Gaul and Fritz Klimsch. Noack was born in Oberlausitz and educated in Lauchhammer. He learned his craft at the Gladenbeck foundry before setting up his own business. He had worked on the National Kaiser Wilhelm Monument by Reinhold Begas.

The business moved to Fehlerstraße in Friedenau, then a small settlement near Berlin. The premises were rebuilt after the Second World War, and the foundry remained in Friedenau until 2009. It moved to a new, larger 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft) building in Charlottenburg in 2010, on Am Spreebord near the River Spree.

The foundry has been run by four generations of the same family, all with the same name:

• Hermann Noack I (1867-1941)
• Hermann Noack II (1895-1958)
• Hermann Noack III (born 1931)
• Hermann Noack IV (born 1966)

The company was involved with the restoration of Johann Gottfried Schadow's copper quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate in the 1950s, and the restoration of Friedrich Drake's gilded statue of Victory on the Berlin Victory Column. It has made 600 casts of the Berliner Bär by Renée Sintenis, used as the statuette for the Golden Bear award. Noack also cast the Mother with her Dead Son by Käthe Kollwitz in the Neue Wache, and has made many other works for dozens of artists, including Henry Moore, Hans Arp, Ernst Barlach, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Rainer Fetting, Georg Kolbe, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Jonathan Meese. Other items made by the foundry included medals made for the National Socialist (Nazi) regime, and war memorials for the Soviet Union.

Herman Noack III won the Admiral's Cup in 1983, with his yacht Sabina.