Helmuth Ellgaard

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Helmuth Ellgaard, 1970

Helmuth Ellgaard (born March 3, 1913 in Hadersleben , German Reich , † April 22, 1980 in Kiel ) was a German press draftsman and illustrator . He became known for his numerous movie posters, which he created between 1954 and 1961.

life and work

education

Reconstruction of the Kiel City Theater, early press drawing, Kieler Latest News, July 1935

Helmuth Ellgaard was born in the then German Hadersleben. The parents belonged to the city's German minority. He was interested in drawing and painting from an early age. In 1928 the family moved to Kiel. In 1934 Ellgaard attended the technical and arts and crafts college in Kiel (today Muthesius Kunsthochschule ) and worked as a set designer at the Kiel City Theater and as a press illustrator for the Kieler Latest News . One of his earliest press drawings appeared on July 10, 1935 in the Kieler Neuesten Nachrichten and shows the renovation of the Kiel City Theater. His artistic role model at that time was the press illustrator Theo Matejko , whom he also offered a collaboration, but this was rejected.

War years

In 1939 Ellgaard went to Berlin , where he married the actress Lotte Berger . One son, Peter , was born in 1940, another, Holger, in 1943. Helmuth Ellgaard's work appeared in the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung at Deutscher Verlag ( Ullstein Verlag during the Nazi era ). In 1940 he was awarded the Carl Schnebel Prize for “outstanding illustrative and press drawing achievements” for his portrayal of the “Greater German Struggle for Destiny” under the heading of Attention Low Flyers (title page of Sirene No. 11/1940). During the Second World War he was the official war correspondent in a propaganda company and followed as a lieutenant in the Air Force on many missions with his sketch pad.

Picture gallery, Helmuth Ellgaard

  • Before illustration for the 1936 Summer Olympics

  • In the Kiel City Theater, Malersaal, 1936

  • As a war reporter in France in 1940

  • In the studio in Munich 1956

  • In the studio in Hamburg-Wandsbek 1962

post war period

Bad Tölz and the Isar 1951.
Helmuth Ellgaard's tombstone.

During the years 1945–1948 Ellgaard illustrated, among other things, the youth magazine Ins neue Leben published by Minerva in West Berlin and the Neue Berliner Illustrierte and Die Frau von heute , both of which were published by the Allgemeine Deutsche Verlag in East Berlin . His clients included several book publishers, for example he illustrated adventures with the film camera by Paul Lieberenz (1946) or The Girl Fleur by Friedrich Berg (1946).

Helmuth Ellgaard left Berlin with his family in 1949 to move to Bad Tölz in Upper Bavaria . He was decisively involved in the creation of the illustrated magazine Revue , so he helped Helmut Kindler with a "handmade" zero number to get the necessary license for the publication of the magazine by the Allies. In 1952 the family moved to Munich . At the Revue he worked as a picture editor and press draftsman and illustrator until 1956. Almost every issue featured illustrations by Helmuth Ellgaard and much of this work was in the style of retro-futurism . The Upper Bavarian Alpine landscape also inspired Ellgaard to create numerous landscape pictures, which, however, were exclusively for private use.

After 1956 Ellgaard worked as a freelance press draftsman and illustrator, now living in Hamburg . Important clients were the film industry, for which he designed numerous posters, as well as magazines and book publishers, for example the film poster for Die Brücke in 1959, illustrations for serial novels, cheerful pictures of everyday situations and drawings of technical utopias.

His new role models were the American Norman Rockwell and the Dane Kurt Ard . He illustrated books for Ehapa Verlag and novels for Bastei Verlag . His work has appeared in Quick , Bunten , Heim und Welt , Kristall , Bild and many more. He was also known to the general public through his many film posters that reflect German films of the 1950s and 1960s, including B. the posters for the films And in the evening in the Scala and It happened in broad daylight .

Helmuth Ellgaard died of a heart attack in 1980 and found his final resting place in the Heikendorf cemetery near Kiel. Much of his work was given as a gift by his sons to the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn in 2003 .

Picture gallery, works (selection)

Movie posters 1954–1961

The bridge , 1959
Night fell over Gotenhafen , 1959
Orfeu Negro , 1959

Sorted by time of origin, then the client / film distributor and web link to the poster if available.

The list is not yet complete and will be continued.

literature

  • Museum magazine. Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany. No. 3/2003, ISSN  1433-349X , pp. 18-19.

See also

Web links

Commons : Helmuth Ellgaard  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Award certificate of the Carl Schnebel Prize
  2. ^ Press release of April 3, 2003 by the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany
  3. ↑ Movie poster
  4. ↑ Movie poster
  5. ↑ Movie poster
  6. ↑ Movie poster
  7. ↑ Movie poster
personal data
SURNAME Ellgaard, Helmuth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German press draftsman and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Hadersleben , Prussia
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1980
Place of death Kiel