From passion to pattion

Joerg Auer

Joerg Auer was born in Chur, Switzerland. After a successful career as a highly specialized equine surgeon, which took him through professorships in Pennsylvania and Texas, eventually leading him to Zurich, Switzerland, he retired in January 2011. Since then, he has been living with his wife Anita, spending half of the year in Lenzburg, Switzerland, and the other half in northern Scottsdale, Arizona. Early in his professional career, he illustrated some of his scientific publications and book chapters.

“Bronze has always fascinated me.”

In the spring of 2012, he asked his Swiss friend André Schwab, who lives in Fountain Hills, Arizona, to help him create a bronze sculpture. Having spent his professional life as an equine orthopedist, he decided to sculpt a characteristic desert bird, knowing that his friends in Switzerland would surely expect him to choose a horse for his first sculpture when he told them he had started modeling. After initial difficulties, he created his first clay sculpture, “Gamble’s Quail.” Encouraged by the result and after getting the go-ahead from André Schwab, he brought it to Stenko, the owner of Arizona Moulds in Tempe, who made the cast and wax copies of the original. The wax copies were handed over to Loren Phippen (the son of one of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America, the late George Phippen) to be cast in Prescott, Arizona. The patina of the sculpture was created at Loren’s in Scottsdale, Arizona, with the expert help of André Schwab, who is himself a great sculptor. The rest is history. Joerg’s enthusiasm for sculpting was sparked. The next sculpture, “MEEP MEEP,” another desert bird, a “roadrunner,” proved to be his most successful sculpture to date, selling 11 times.

In the spring of 2013, he attended Curt Mattson’s workshop “Composition and the Horse” at the Scottsdale Artists School. Despite the fact that he knew equine anatomy quite well, he began to look at horses differently to capture the details of these beautiful animals in clay. While he found good conditions for his new hobby in Arizona, he sought opportunities to pursue art during his time in Switzerland as well. He found a studio 15 minutes from his home, fully equipped for various printing techniques, including etching, aquatint, lithography, etc. Thus, he began to engage in etching and aquatint. The studio owner, Peter Wanner, is an expert himself and generously supports his students in all areas of the craft. Again, Joerg’s subjects were mainly related to Arizona’s wildlife, such as owls, bobcats, roadrunners, and Utah’s arches in the national parks. Joerg Auer’s artworks have been exhibited in various juried exhibitions, including “The Best and Brightest” at the Scottsdale Artists School in 2014, 2015, and 2016, as well as the Mountain Oyster Club Art Show in Tucson in 2016. Joerg has exhibited five times at the Sonoran Arts League Gallery in El Pedregal. He also participated in the art show “Art St.-Urban Rotary Art 9” in Switzerland in 2017. So far, he has been asked to create three sculptures depicting specific horses, known as “commissions”: the first of “Lantinus,” the former number one show jumping horse in the world. This was followed by another commission for a reining horse, depicting a full stop with the owner’s bridle, saddle pad, and saddle but without the rider. The latest sculpture represents a mare with her foal in full gallop.