Wikipedia entry for Frank Wedekind
FRANK WEDEKIND.–”I regard Wedekind as the greatest and most forceful creative artist of our day; he is perhaps the only man, and that not in Germany alone, who really has something new to say and says it in a new way” (Worringer).Wedekind was bom in Hanover on July 24, 1864, and died in Munich on March 9, 1918. The death mask was taken on the day following the artist’s death by the Munich moulder Hans Zoller; the original is in the possession of Wedekind’s widow. In addition to various casts in the hands of Wedekind’s friends and admirers, we must mention the specimen in the Munich Theatrical Museum. Mrs. Tilly Wedekind writes of the mask in a letter: “It is wonderful and touching to me to see how every trace of suffering and bitterness has vanished from the face, and the expression is smiling and peaceful, a little ironical and exalted above all earthly things.” Photograph by Genthe, Leipzig.Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.