Fritz Eichenberg

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Fritz Eichenberg (born October 24, 1901 in Cologne , † November 30, 1990 in Peace Dale , Rhode Island , USA ) was a German-American illustrator .

Life

Fritz Eichenberg was the son of Jewish parents, Siegfried Eichenberg (1861–1918) and Ida Marcus (1872–1955). He completed an apprenticeship in lithography at the Dumont Schauberg publishing house , attended the Municipal School of Crafts and Applied Arts in Cologne, the Leipzig School of Graphics and Book Art and studied art with Hugo Steiner-Prague . In 1923 he moved to Berlin and began working as a freelance artist for book and magazine publishers. His caricatures in the popular magazine UHU dealt critically, among other things, with the rise of the National Socialists . For example, in 1931 he developed a series of images for UHU entitled “Incredible Stories” and drew, for example, Hitler with a mirror-inverted SS patch, as he humbly received the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm.

After the Nazis came to power, Eichenberg emigrated to the United States with his wife, mother and children and settled in New York City . He accepted teaching positions at several universities, including the New School for Social Research and the Pratt Institute in New York, as well as at the University of Rhode Island . In the government project Works Progress Administration to combat mass unemployment, he was in charge of the Federal Art Project. Fritz Eichenberg was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design in 1949.

His illustrations appeared in the American editions of great novels from Tolstoy to Grimmelshausen. Eichenberg also wrote and illustrated children's books. One of the most famous was an alphabet in which the letters consist of animals ( Ape in a Cape: An Alphabet of Odd Animals , 1988). As a child he was attracted to Taoism and pacifism . After the death of his wife in 1937, he turned to Zen Buddhism , but remained connected to the Quakers and Catholics until his death . In 1949 he became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. In 1960, together with a group of Quakers, he met the Soviet head of state Nikita Khrushchev . Among other things, this meeting resulted in an exhibition of American graphics in the Soviet Union. In his second marriage, he was married to the Berlin graphic artist Antonie (Toni) Schulze-Forster (Berlin 1924-1995 Peace Dale) from the 1970s, widow of the professor of graphics at the Berlin University of the Arts Richard Blank (1901-1972).

Illustrated books (selection)

  • The people's book by Till Eulenspiegel , Lothar Joachim Verlag Leipzig 1925.
  • Jonathan Swift: Lemuel Gulliver's travels in different countries , series "Epikon - A Collection of Classical Novels", Der Büchermarkt GmbH Berlin 1925.
  • Wolf Durian: Kai out of the box , Franz Schneider Verlag Leipzig 1927.
  • Peter Mattheus: Lies receives his driver's license , Herold-Verlag Stuttgart 1937.
  • Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels - An Account of the Four Voyages into Several Remote Nations in the World , illustrated with Engravings on Wood, The Heritage Press New York 1940.
  • Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre , Random House New York 1943.
  • Edgar Allan Poe: Tales , with an introduction by Hervey Allen, Random House New York 1944.
  • Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights , Random House New York 1945.
  • JJ Chr. Von Grimmelshausen: The Adventures of Simplicissimus , in a new translation by John P. Spielman, printed for the members of the Limited Editions Club New York 1981.
  • Fritz Eichenberg: A Dance of Death. A Graphic Commentary on the Danse Macabre through the Centuries , Abbeville Press New York 1983.

Literature about and by Fritz Eichenberg (selection)

  • Curt Visel (ed.), Ronald Clark: Fritz Eichenberg. Catalog of works of illustrated books 1922–1987 , Catalog Raisonné of the Illustrated Books 1922–1987 (artist monographs, volume 6)
  • Zlata Fuss Phillips: German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile, 1933–1950. Biographies and Bibliographies . Munich: Saur, 2001, ISBN 3-598-11569-5 , pp. 61-68
  • Fritz Eichenberg: A Portfolio of Prints by Fritz Eichenberg , Orbis Books, September 1995
  • Fritz Eichenberg, Robert Ellsberg: Works of Mercy , Orbis Books, September 2004

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hubert Wegner: Four masters of the woodcut: Fritz Eichenberg, Johannes Lebek , Hans Alexander Müller , Hellmuth Weissenborn . C. Visel, 1988
  2. ↑ UHU, October 1931, p. 32
  3. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "E" / Eichenberg, Fritz NA 1949 ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 20, 2015)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  4. ↑ Gerald Fraser: Fritz Eichenberg, A Book Illustrator And Educator, 89 . New York Times, December 4, 1990 [1] , accessed April 21, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Eichenberg, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1990
Place of death Peace Dale , Rhode Island , USA