STONE SCULPTURE MUSEUM KUBACH-WILMSEN

The Stone Sculpture Museum, which opened in 2010, is the only museum of contemporary stone sculpture in the world. It nestles within the wine-growing landscape of Germany’s Nahe valley, opposite to the Rotenfels cliff, Ebernburg castle, Norheim village and the rocky pinnacles of the Rheingrafenstein. The endowment of 65 works in stone sculpted by Anna Kubach-Wilmsen and Wolfgang Kubach laid the foundation for the museum project. In order to turn their vision into reality, in 1998 the two artists established the Fondation Kubach-Wilmsen trust and designated some 4 acres of land for the future Stone Sculpture Park.

The Stone Sculpture Museum was designed on behalf of sculptors Anna Kubach-Wilmsen and Wolfgang Kubach by the world-famous architect Tadao Ando from Osaka, Japan. At the heart of Ando’s concept for the museum building is a half-timbered wooden field barn dating from the 18th century, which originally stood in nearby Sponheim. This historical nucleus is flanked by two open-air sculpture courtyards in contemporary concrete construction.

Stone sculptors Anna Kubach-Wilmsen and Wolfgang Kubach began working together in 1968. They have carried out large-scale sculptural commissions in Germany and abroad and participated in many international sculptor symposia. Their works have regularly appeared in exhibitions from Japan to the United States.

The artistic oeuvre of the Kubach-Wilmsen sculptors represents a 50-year homage to stone, as the materia that evolved our planet’s natural architecture. Their work continues to be devoted exclusively to stone as archetype. They understand stone as a testament of the history of the Earth’s formation over millions of years.