1850, Lemgo (Germany) - 1912, Lemgo (Germany)

Karl Junker lost his parents and brother when he was a child. He studied architecture and painting in Munich, then spent three years in Italy. He returned to Lemgo and in 1889 started building a house for him and for his future family. This passion was all absorbing to the point that his fiancée, feeling neglected, left him. He would work at it for twenty years. Every inch of the house was sculpted, from stairs to ceiling. Walls were covered with with mythological and historic figures, which corresponded to his personal mythology. In his imaginary world, inspired by Antiquity, Middle Ages and primitive arts, he was the founding father, the God who erased or replaced the tragedy of his lonely life. Karl Junker would spend the rest of his life alone, in a small room in the attic of this huge livable sculpture, as if he had found shelter at the top of his own delirium.

SEE ALSO : KREYENBERG (Gerhard). "Das Junkerhaus zu Lemgo. Ein Beitrag zur Bildnerei der Schizophrenen", in Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie u. Psychiatrie, no.114, Berlin, 1928, p.152-172.

SALBER (Wilhelm). Drehfiguren - Karl Junker, Maler, Architekt, Bildhauer, Lemgo, 1978.

SCHUMANN (Klaus Peter). Karl Junker - ein Lemgoer Künstler zwischen Impressionismus, Expressionismus, in : 800 Jahre Lemgo, Aspekte der Stadtgeschichte, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt Lemgo, vol.2, Lemgo, 1990.