Literature: Harry Schlichtenmaier, Otto Baum. Werkverzeichnis der Skulpturen, in: Renate Wiehager, Otto Baum. Retrospektive zum 100. Geburtstag, Esslingen, 2000, p. 160, no. 130.B. 5; Franz Roh, Otto Baum, Tübingen 1950, fig. 44f.

As early as the early 1940s, Otto Baum was concerned with the reduction of figurative forms - the best-known example is certainly the dove, but also the cat, in various materials. The elephant motif appears several times around 1945/46 as a closed form, still provided with the typical identifying features, especially the trunk. Baum only went further in his designs for a large sculpture executed for Stuttgart in 1953: Driven by the same playful approach to abstraction as Willi Baumeister, possibly inspired by illustrations of works by Henry Moore, Baum focused not only on the essential, which seems to be imposed like an additive element like the large elephant ears or can only be guessed at from the form like the trunk, but also on the free, in consequence abstract form like the opening of the sculpture, which gave it the subtitle "Lochofant." Within modern abstract sculpture, the "Elefantenmal" occupies a pioneering position in Germany.