William Ernst Ehrich (12 July 1897 Königsberg, East Prussia – 10 August 1960 Rochester, New York) was an American sculptor, ceramicist, public monument artist, educator, and Work Progress Administration (WPA) supervisor.
Ehrich was noted by Harold Olmsted of the Albright-Knox Gallery’ for “attain[ing] a modest national reputation for his figurative sculpture…”.
[4] Ehrich became a woodcarver’s apprentice and later studied sculpture and ceramics as a scholarship student at the State Art School (Kunst- und Gewerkschule).
He studied there under the direction of Hermann Brachert, Franz Andreas Threyne, and Erich Schmidt-Kestner,[5] In March 1916, during World War I, Ehrich was inducted into the German Imperial Army.
In 1929 Ehrich collaborated with his professor, Erich Schmidt-Kestner to carve the reliefs around the entrances of the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in Königsberg.
The travertine reliefs above the doors representing travel by water, land, and air and arrival and departure were executed by Ehrich.
The relief are considered incorrectly attributed to Schmidt-Kestner a claim corroborated in the German art history text by Mühlpfordt, Herbert M. (Holzner Verlag, Würzburg 1970, pp.
Ehrich found a market mass during the Great Depression producing sets of china animals from original plaster molds.
[4] Ehrich’s notes indicate that he directed sculptural work at the entrance gates and fountain and the sgraffito decorating the exterior of the animal houses.
In 1955, Ehrich received a new studio and sculpture classrooms at the University of Rochester after advancing his position and was experimenting with lost wax bronze casting.