This a ceramic (?) sculpture depicting two human figures in a modernist style. It has a hollow interior and a porous, uneven surface. The figures form one sculptural unit and are coloured brown and mottled pink and brown.
The sculpture shows two figures, one slightly larger than the other. The figures are shown standing very close together. Both figures have wide eyes and are looking up, as if at the sky, and have their mouths slightly open. The larger figure stands behind the smaller one and has its right arm raised upwards at a roughly 45-degree angle, with finger shown pointing upwards. The hand of the left arm rests on the upper arm of the smaller figure.
The smaller figure has its left hand up to the side of its mouth, with one figure extended, as if thoughtful.
The hands, faces and leg-shapes of the figures are painted dark brown. The area around the hair of the figures, perhaps depicting hair or perhaps a hair covering show as a mottled pink. The area depicting a long-sleeved shirt on each figure is also unpainted. Painted black lines outline the borders between pink and brown areas.
The sculpture is stored with a hand-written label identifying it. This is slotted inside a clear plastic stand-alone sign holder.
Accession Number: 2025.ast.288
Alternative Name: stargazing sculpture
scuplture: ceramic, stone (?), paint; label: cardboard, plastic
A label with the sculpture reads: “‘The Star Gazers’
by August Wiedmann
North Hatley, Quebec
Gift in token of his appreciation
for the Astronomy Course
First Year General – 1959”
Dimensions (cm): Length: 18cm; Width; 12cm; Height: 20cm
Function: Art
Excellent. The sculpture shows no or little sign of damage.
The label stored with the sculpture has previously been creased and is worn around the rim. The bottom right hand corner is damaged and missing.
Associated Instruments:
Artist: August Wiedmann, North Hatley, Quebec
Date of Manufacture: 1959
This sculpture was gifted to the University of Toronto Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics by the artist in 1959 as a thank you for his time in the first year astronomy course. It was kept by Professors of Astronomy and Wiedmann’s likely instructors Helen Sawyer Hogg and Ruth Northcott. For several decades prior to 2025, it remained in the possession of the Hogg family. In August 2025, it was donated to the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics by Helen Sawyer Hogg’s son, Astronomer David E. Hogg.
August Wiedmann (1928-?) is or was a German-Canadian art historian, philosopher and sculptor. Trained as a sculptor in Germany, he was active as an artist in Quebec in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1958, when he was aged 29, an exhibit of his sculptures was shown at the Université de Montréal’s Centre social. In an article in the Montreal Gazette of February 22, 1958 by Dorothy Pfeiffer, he was described as “a young man who studied in Germany under the direction of Professor von Zuegel. Since coming to Canada a few years ago the sculptor has continued his work and last year was represented in the Canadian Ceramic Exhibition at Toronto. Mr. Wiedmann’s sculptures are created in the modern idiom and with taste. Much of his work is tenderly poetic in feeling. he is a sculptor who sees beauty in the human form even when he distorts it. One piece of sculpture in particular which is entitled “Maternity” is both modern and tender. A sketch of a wood carving which might be a caricature of the Three Graces is not as successful for it is derivitive [sic] and just a trifle vulgar.”
In 1959, Wiedmann’s work was shown as part of Canadian Ceramics ’59 at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. In 1961, his “terra-cotta sculpture” was advertised in the Globe & Mail on show at Upstairs Gallery, Toronto. An August K. Wiedmann graduated from the University of Toronto in 1962, affiliated with Trinity College. No photograph or other information is given, and he is listed as being from Toronto. It is evidently during completing this degree that he took the first year astronomy course for which this sculpture was made. In 1971, August K. Wiedmann completed a PhD at Northwestern University with the title, “Romanticism and Its Continued Heritage in Kandinsky and German Expressionism.”
In the latter half of the 20th century it appears an August K. Wiedmann was active as an influential and somewhat controversial philosopher and art historian–this is probably the same person. He worked at Memorial University in the 1960s or 1970s, where he was also known as a sculptor. In the later 1980s and 1990s, he appears to have been working in England, possibly at Goldsmiths College. He is the author of at least three books: “Romantic Roots in Modern Art” (1979), “Romantic Art Theories” (1986) and “The German quest for primal origins in art, culture and politics 1900-1933 : die ‘Flucht in Urzustände’” (1990).
According to David E. Hogg, the label accompanying the sculpture was written by Ruth Northcott, who at the time of Wiedmann’s gift was an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Toronto, and probably one of Wiedmann’s instructors.
Historical Notes: