About Steffen Thomas

Steffen Thomas was born in 1906 in Fürth, Germany. His father, a paintbrush manufacturer, apprenticed him to a stonecutter at the age of 14 after realizing his son wanted to be a sculptor. Steffen applied himself and became an excellent stone carver, spending part of his time working on WWI monuments. He was so gifted that at the age of 17 he was accepted to the School of Applied Arts in Nuremberg and at the age of 19 entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. While at the Academy he established himself as a sculptor of note, was given a studio of his own and awarded “Master” status at the age of 21.

Steffen was infatuated with the American Dream, and at the age of 22 paid his own way to the United States, finding a job in Palm Beach, Florida. There, he made copies of classical sculptures for the E.F. Hutton Estate, until he got bored and started to add his own embellishments. As a result, he was fired on the spot. After a brief trip to Germany, he returned to America. He lived for a short time in Alabama but settled in Atlanta by 1930. The “Young Bavarian Sculptor” soon became well known and was commissioned to sculpt busts of Southern dignitaries, such as Alabama Governor Bibb Graves and Dr. George Denny, President of the University of Alabama. By 1931, he converted an outbuilding into a studio behind the Studio Arts Assembly at the corner of Peachtree and 14th Street, where he continued to work for 10 years.

As an attractive, eligible Atlanta bachelor in 1933, Steffen courted the very southern belle Sara Douglass for six short weeks before he asked her to marry him. She promptly said “yes” and they were married that very day in the Fulton County Courthouse, where an Atlanta Journal photographer snapped them as they came out of the building. He became an American citizen in 1935 and continued his work as a sculptor, supporting his new family by creating busts of famous Americans, including the noted scientist George Washington Carver and Dr. Crawford Long.

In 1941, Steffen bought 50 acres in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where he and his wife raised their four children in a home he built himself–stone by stone. Here, he worked in his studio equipped with a bronze-casting foundry he again built himself. Thomas created some of his greatest public sculptures in the Stone Mountain studio, including the colossal statue of Governor Eugene Talmadge, on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, and the Alabama Memorial, located in the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. Thomas continued to accept commissions until 1955. Finally able to follow his muse, Steffen created the type of Expressionist art that is represented in the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art until he passed away in 1990.

Like a child with a new toy, Thomas was fascinated by every medium, and always wanted to show visitors his latest creation.  His energy was unbounded--he let his creativity take him anywhere it wanted to go, while at the same time he was a loyal and loving husband and father. He was always seeking the truth and ways to express his vision of the true “brotherhood of man” -- a theme reflected in much of his work.  

Thomas died in January 1990, leaving a body of artistic work and funds for Sara-  his wife and Muse to establish the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art. Since then, a traveling exhibition, with a catalog, The Art of Steffen Thomas, was shown in venues in New York and Mississippi. Also, there were solo exhibitions with catalogs at The Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon Georgia, the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA, and the Hudgins Center for the Arts in Duluth, GA. There are ongoing exhibitions of his work, with changing thematic shows, in the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art in Buckhead, GA, near Madison. In 2009, he was included in Georgia Masterpieces: Selected Works from Georgia Museums, a book produced by the Georgia Council for the arts. In 2014, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA, opened a touring exhibition, with a companion catalog, Steffen Thomas Rediscovered.

In 2015 Steffen Thomas Rediscovered traveled to the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. 

In 2017, the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs hosted Steffen Thomas: A Legacy in Atlanta, a summer long series of events in Atlanta, which included: a Plein Air “paint out” for 17 invited Georgia artists, who interpreted Thomas’s Trilon fountain sculpture, located on Peachtree Street next to Colony Square; a Steffen Thomas public art walk in Midtown; a forum on Public Art in Georgia at Gallelry 72; an exhibition of the works of Steffen Thomas and interpreted Trilon art by the invited artists, at Gallery 72 in Atlanta; this exhibit travelled to the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art in rural Buckhead.

Between 2018-2024 Steffen Thomas art was featured in a series of yearly exhibitions at the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art, focusing on Thomas’s Brotherhood of Mankind philosophy. These annual exhibits include the works of contemporary Georgia artists that resonate with the Brotherhood theme. 

In 2024, Prolific and Experimental: The Art of Steffen Thomas, was exhibited at the Martha Berry Museum at Oak Hill, Rome, Georgia.

In 2023 a documentary film, Steffen Thomas: Rock & Chisel, aired on GA Public Broadcasting and continued to be screened at theaters across Georgia from 2023-2025. The film is scheduled to be shown in theaters across Thomas’s homeland, Bavaria, Germany, in the spring of 2025. 

Read Steffen Thomas' Resume