Michael Sandle was born in Weymouth, Dorset and studied at the Douglas School of Art and Technology, Isle of Man (1951–54). After completing National Service in 1956, he took evening classes at the Chester College of Art, and went on to study printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art, London between 1956-9. He then moved to Germany where his work began to attract attention when his large bronze sculpture ‘Oranges and Lemons’ was shown at the Documenta IV exhibition at Kassel in 1968. He was invited to join the staff of the Technical College at Pforzheim and in 1980 he became Professor of the Academy of Art in Karlsruhe. Much of Sandle’s work which is predominantly concerned with the tragedies, accoutrements and fatalities of war, gained recognition in Germany earlier than in Britain. Sandle has commented that he was drawn to Germany ‘because of its tragedy, because of its ghosts, because of my childhood in the war. My heroes are European – all the painters, sculptors, authors, poets, philosophers – one wants to be part of it’.
