German sculptor Egon Gutmann came from the then German region of Alsace and studied in Straßburg. After serving as an officer in World War I, he continued his studies in Karlsruhe and at the College of Fine Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg. From 1926 he worked as a teacher and later headed the Sculptors Department of Art College in Karlsruhe. In the 1930s he adapted his art to the aesthetics of the National Socialists. During the German occupation in World War II, he returned to Straßburg in 1940 and headed the local art school. Gutmann was a teacher and later director of a goldsmith school in Pforzheim until his death. He took part in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games with his work Bergsteiger (mountaineer), which was also presented in the exhibition “Blood and Soil” in the same year.