Heinz Schubel

Heinz Schubel (born January 22, 1906 in Langenöls , † December 11, 1997 in Stuttgart ) was a German graphic artist and illustrator . His best-known works include the Lurchi booklet for the shoe manufacturer Salamander , the long-term success of which he founded.

Life

Heinz Schubel began to draw in his childhood, Wilhelm Busch was his role model . After the First World War, the family moved to Freiburg im Breisgau , where he began training as a lithographer in 1920. In the 1920s he mainly worked for newspaper advertisements, from the 1930s he also designed posters and began to illustrate children's books. His clients were, for example, Loewe Verlag and Josef Scholz-Verlag, Mainz.

In 1940 Schubel was drafted into the Wehrmacht and initially served in a construction battalion. When his artistic talent was discovered, he was transferred to cartography in 1942, and in the further course of the war he also worked on leaflets for propaganda. Towards the end of the war he was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front. His talents were not long hidden from the Soviets, who then occupied him with socialist commissioned art.

Schubel returned from captivity in 1950 and worked again for Loewe, and later also for Franz Schneider Verlag , Munich. In 1951, the shoe manufacturer Salamander decided to resume its “Lurchi's Adventure” series, which it had started in 1937 but had stopped when the war began. The printing company of the “United Art Institutes” in Kaufbeuren was commissioned to create new episodes, and they commissioned Heinz Schubel to do the illustration work. He modernized the appearance of the series and also redrawn the pre-war episodes. After the business relationship between the "United Art Institutes" and "Salamander" was dissolved, he was employed directly by the shoe manufacturer. When the copywriter Erwin Kühlewein left the company in 1964, Schubel also took over its duties.

With his style characterized by children's book illustration, Heinz Schubel set standards that were difficult to achieve for his successors. The richness of detail and the careful elaboration of each individual picture distinguish his work. In addition to the magazine series, Heinz Schubel was also responsible for various merchandising products. For health reasons he had to retire from working life in 1972. Issue number 52, which was about the Olympic Games in Munich , was his last work on Lurchi .

He and his wife spent their twilight years in Esslingen. He received more attention in 1994 when a traveling exhibition at the Kornwestheim City Museum honored the Lurchi series. A short time later Schubel's wife passed away and he moved to a nursing home in Stuttgart, where he died on December 11, 1997.

literature

• René Granacher: Heinz Schubel. In: Eckart Sackmann (ed.): Deutsche Comicforschung 2005. Comicplus, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-89474-144-9 , pp. 82–91.