There exists a definite contrast between Barbara Trauth's sculptures and her two-dimensional art. The paintings are of strongly figurative nature, conveying the peaceful beauty of children and nature. Her sculptures show a marked expressionist tendency.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Barbara Trauth graduated from Edgecliff College with a degree in fine arts with a concentration in sculpting. She worked as an illustrator for Gibson Greeting Cards, Inc., Shillito's department store, and the Cincinnati Post and Cincinnati Enquirer newspapers. Even while raising four children, she taught Saturday art classes at the Cincinnati Museum of Art and continued to take classes in painting at the Art Academy for seventeen years.
When asked how she envisions Mary, Barbara responds: "Mary is protecting, a mother, real. I see her as the most beautiful woman in the world. A woman filled with love and purity. I see her as the Tabernacle of the Most High. This is a wonderful, joyful experience for Mary—but for all of us. As Mary shares her light, so should we."
This endearingly joyful sculpture of children coming together in a round dance to honor Our Lady holding high the Christ child illustrates one of the many facets of Barbara Trauth's art. From lush landscapes to sculptures of torn and twisted human existence, the artist seems to move with amazing ease from the tantalizing questioning of Expressionist art to the lightness of being as we find it in the variations on the Magnificat with its feminine figures miming a heavenly ballet come to earth.
