Hans Prussia

Hans Hermann Arno Preuße (born November 5, 1918 in Dresden ; † September 29, 1991 there ) was a German graphic artist and painter , illustrator of numerous books and tree researcher.

Life

After graduating from high school, Hans Preuße began studying commercial graphics at the State Academy for Applied Arts in Dresden in October 1935. His professor in the graphics department was Arno Drescher , who promoted him and made him a master student in 1938. At the same time, Preuße took private painting lessons from Karl August Breitfeld (1902–1977). When he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, he had to finish his studies in September 1939. Seven years of war participation and Soviet imprisonment followed, from which he returned in autumn 1946. By the bombing of Dresden on February 13, 1945 Prussian lost his belongings, in a further consequence, his wife. He soon found work again in the profession he had learned as a graphic designer and, according to his own statements, from 1947 onwards, 37 years of freelance work as an illustrator of popular science and specialist books at Neumann Verlag in Radebeul . Together with the publisher Martin Schönbrodt Rühl, he developed books in which the drawing was given more space. Some of these richly illustrated books were in large and large editions on the market and also widespread beyond the German-speaking countries, but were difficult to obtain in the GDR . Among other things, “Advice for every garden day” with around 1,200 drawings, total print run so far 1.5 million copies; “Maintain orchids, multiply, breed”, which, apart from us, is available from the USA to England to Australia; “Aquarium practice in brief” and “400 pieces of advice for dog lovers” are also export-intensive, both in many languages. The topics range from “indoor plants”, “roses” to “fruit growing” and “forestry” - from “bees” to “terrariums” to “pigs” and “cattle”. Every time it was necessary to think deeply about the respective subject area before the content could be implemented methodically and vividly in image sequences or as advice illustration. As a rule, the picture documents were created in direct contact with the object. In 1952, Prussia married a second time.

After completing his professional work and healing a heart attack in January 1984, Preuße decided to process the extensive materials, records and findings he had collected and make them accessible to the public. From the intensive professional occupation with fruit and other trees, Prussia developed new points of view over the years, which he wanted to publish in his own book. He never got around to it; on September 29, 1991 he died of a second heart attack.

Works (selection)

• with Georg Buß and Brigitte Grübler: The tree - mediator between heaven and earth. B. Grübler, Dresden 2009, ISBN 3-000-26611-9 .
• with Georg Buß: Access to the tree - basic contributions to dendrology with a special focus on fruit growing. Self-published, Klagenfurt 2018, ISBN 978-3-200-05438-7 .
• with Franz Böhmig: Advice for every gardening day. A practical manual for gardening enthusiasts. Eugen Ulmer Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-7402-0157-9 .
• with Gerhard Friedrich: Advice for the orchard. A guide for the self-sufficient. Neumann, 1991, ISBN 3-740-20096-0 .
• with Gerhard Friedrich: Fruit growing in words and pictures . Neumann, 1988, ISBN 3-894-40537-6 .
• with Claus Zeiler: 300 pieces of advice for the hobby beekeeper . Neumann, 1986.
• with Walter Richter: care for, propagate, and grow orchids. Neumann-Neudamm Verlag, 1976, ISBN 3-7888-0135-2 .
• with Hans Frey: Aquarium practice in a nutshell, an aquarium primer in words and pictures . Neumann-Neudamm, 1970.
• with Manfred Koch, Martin Schönbrodt-Rühl: 400 pieces of advice for dog lovers . Neumann-Neudamm, 1963.
• with Hans Thomale : The Orchids: Introduction to the culture and reproduction of tropical and native orchids . E. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1957.
• Friedrich Hilkenbäumer : Appropriate way of working in fruit growing: Cultivation of fruit trees: (including grafting process) / with drawings by Hans Preusse. Volume 2, Neumann, 1959.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Preuße in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Digitized on February 18, 2009