Carl Ludwig Schmitz

Born in 1900 in Metz, France (then part of Germany), Carl Ludwig Schmitz became a sculptor’s apprentice at age fourteen, and afterwards studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Munich for six years. Schmitz moved to the United States in 1923 and worked as a modeler in terra cotta factories in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, while studying at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City. He served as an assistant to sculptors Carl Milles, Paul Manship, and Carl Paul Jennewein, and in 1930, he opened his own studio. In 1933, Schmitz became a member of the National Sculpture Society. That same year, he completed four plaster reliefs for the U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. In 1936 and 1938, he completed two other commissions at the Federal Trade Commission and the Post Office building, now the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building in Washington, D.C. His accolades include the gold medal from the 1937 International Exposition in Paris and the George D. Widener Memorial Medal.