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The bronze sculpture 'Standing Youth' by the German artist Karl Albiker, who was born in Ühlingen in the southern Black Forest in 1878 and died in Ettlingen in 1961, shows a naked young man with his feet together. His left forearm is resting on his shoulder, while his right arm is raised to his chest. His upper body is slightly bent to the side and his head is turned to the left. The tensed muscles and accentuated posture recall the exploration of movement in Albiker's neoclassical sculptures.

The human figure is a major theme in Albiker's art, and he was influenced by antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. He created small sculptures, such as the Standing Youth, as well as reliefs and monumental architectural sculptures, some of which were commissioned by the public. Albiker studied in Karlsruhe and was inspired by Aristide Maillol and Auguste Rodin in Paris. He later lived in Munich and Rome. The sculpture Standing Youth was created in Florence in 1910/11, while Albiker was studying there. From 1919 Albiker was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden.

After the Nazis came to power, Albiker joined the NSDAP in May 1933 in order, as he later said, to keep his position at the art academy. He was commissioned by the Nazi regime to create sculptures for public spaces, including two large monumental figures, a discus thrower and a relay runner, for the Reichssportfeld in Berlin (now the Olympic Park) in 1936. Albiker was a co-organiser and participant in the Great German Art Exhibition and in 1944 was included in the list of 'Gottbegnadeten-Künstler', a list of the most important artists of the Third Reich who were granted special protection. In the course of his long-standing friendship with the expressionist painter Karl Hofer, who was ostracised by the Nazis as a 'degenerate' artist, Albiker kept around 80 of his friend's paintings in order to protect them. Albiker lived and worked in Ettlingen after the Second World War.