Heiner Rothfuchs

Heiner Rothfuchs (born June 18, 1913 in Wünschendorf / Elster , Thuringia ; † July 27, 2000 ) was a German illustrator and university professor .

Life

Until 1929 he attended high school in Gera . From 1929 to 1933 he trained as a painter / house painter in Leipzig .

He then worked as a painter / house painter in a craft business in Leipzig until 1935. In his free time he was self-taught with animal and nature studies. From 1936 he was a freelance artist in Leipzig, where he got his first illustration orders for youth books, youth magazines and literary literature. In 1938 he moved to Potsdam .

From 1940 to 1945 he was a soldier in World War II. Towards the end of the war he was taken prisoner of war. In 1946 he was released to Wiesbaden because his family had meanwhile moved there. From 1947 he was a drawing teacher at the Wiesbaden trade school, which later became the technical and art school. Heiner Rothfuchs was head of the illustration and scientific graphics class . Scientific graphics was first developed by H. Rothfuchs as a specialized field of work and teaching. 1960 to 1969 interruption of teaching. Freelance painter, illustrator, graphic artist. Numerous study trips to North Africa, Persia, South Africa and Namibia. In 1970 he resumed teaching at the Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences . In 1970 he took a state exam as a graduate designer.

Heiner Rothfuchs was always interested in zoology, ethnology, archeology and related natural sciences as well as especially in the fine arts. This is very clearly reflected in his work. As a teenager he began to draw constantly in his spare time. His excellent observation skills and his talent for drawing enabled him to continually develop himself as an autodidact.

In addition to his teaching activities, he had orders as an illustrator for publishers such as W. Fischer, Bertelsmann, Ensslin & Laiblin, Rütten & Loening, Voggenreiter Verlag , Klett, Herold, Herder, Schroedel, Brockhaus, Matthias Grünewald, Bibliogr. Institut Mannheim, Hoch-Verlag, Franck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wasmuth, Schaffstein, Schott Music , Müller-Schindler, Südmarkverlag etc. In 1946 Sonnen-Verlag Josef Wiroth published the children's book “Das böse Krokodil”, in which Rothfuchs for text and Drawings was responsible.

He illustrated youth and school books, classics of world literature, bibliophile works and worked on encyclopedias. For museums such as the Nature and Hunting Museum in Brüggen, the Natural History Museum in Wiesbaden and the like. He designed large-scale dioramas for showcases and showcases.

His drawings, watercolors, tempera and oil paintings, etchings, lithographs and woodcuts were shown in exhibitions a. a. shown in Wiesbaden, Johannesburg, Waldeck Castle in the Hunsrück, Hünstetten, Biedenkopf, Frankfurt / Main and Windhoek.

Heiner Rothfuchs was a member of the Nerother Wandervogel and founder of the "Nerother Werkordens".

Web links

• Literature by and about Heiner Rothfuchs in the catalog of the German National Library