Kurt Lossgott was born on 30 December 1941 in the Sudetenland, during the upheavals of the Second World War. Resettled in postwar Germany as a working-class refugee, he trained as a fitter and turner — a grounding in materials and craftsmanship that would underpin everything he later made.

In the 1960s he emigrated to South Africa on a contract as a refrigeration mechanic. He moonlighted as a photo-story actor and catalogue model, and tried his hand at boxing — an immigrant's improvised arrival in a new country.

Inspired by the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, Kurt began welding figures from discarded machine parts. In 1969 he had his first solo exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. The Telegraph wrote:

“Considerable interest was shown by both the artist fraternity and the general public in a recent exhibition of modern sculpture by the 28-year-old Kurt Lossgott. Most people found it hard to believe that the artist has never had any art training or coaching in his whole life, and that he only started sculpting a mere four years ago when he arrived in South Africa…”

— The Telegraph, “Sculpture from motorcar scrap”, 14 February 1969.

In the 1980s, Kurt further developed his skills in metal-smithing, modelling in clay and wax, and mould-making. Commissions for detailed studies of farm animals — the Brahman Bull, the Merino sheep — echoed his rural childhood. But it is the horse in motion he returned to faithfully over the years, and was probably best known for capturing.

In the draped figures of what he then called the Tomorrow series, made in the early 1980s, Kurt gave body to the ancient mystery of the unknown — what many cultural traditions have called “the veil.” Late in life he renamed them Tomorrow's Angels. The veiled archetypes became central to his metaphysical work. Shown in Munich, 1987; in the Cape, 1990.

Kurt did not always have an easy ride with critics.

An article in the Eastern Echo of December 1974, on the scrap-metal animal works, is dripping with ironic critique. This “vigorous, masculine sculptor”, writes the journalist, has “grasped fully” “the mechanical aspects of our sometimes nightmarish civilisation”.

In Pretoria, reviewing the joint exhibition with Celia at the SA Association of Arts, the Afrikaans critic Joey de Jager read the Tomorrow Series with less patience: “one figure looks much like the other.”

From Munich in 1987, an unnamed evening-paper critic reviewing the Bayerische Landesbank exhibition asked the question the other reviewers had not: “Does Lossgott present this group as a symbol of the deep-seated, agonising realisation of South Africa's 'apartheid' policy? Is it possible that his figures already provide an answer to a question which we first have to ask?”

His public sculptures enlivened spaces across South Africa — from the Flying Owl with Child at the Johannesburg Zoo (1972) and the Peacock Fountain at the Oriental Plaza (1974), to the four-metre Madiba and Child at the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Umtata (2002), the highlight of his career.

He mentored artists including Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi and Tommy Motswai, served on the Artists' Market and competition judging panels, and exhibited for many years with the artist, sculptor and educator Celia de Villiers.

Decades of multiple sclerosis, and a pilgrimage to a spiritual healer in Brazil, gave rise to Lucifer — the unfinished fallen angel that hung in his entrance hall. Kurt read the figure as the prodigal son. The Dragon, made shortly after his grandson's birth, was his last completed work.

A devoted Rosicrucian, Boy Scout Akela, trombone player in the Afro Guggle Swiss Carnival Band, and longtime member of the German humour club Schlaraffia, Kurt gave generously of his time and wisdom. He is remembered not only for his works, but for the imagination, generosity, and conviction he gave to many communities over six decades. His family carries his legacy forward with pride and love.