Peter Leger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Rudolf Leger (born May 4, 1924 in Brno ; † October 17, 1991 ) was a political cartoonist .

Life

Peter Leger was born in Brno in Czechoslovakia as the son of the art professor Rudolf Leger and the teacher Wilhelmine Leger, née Neumann. His younger brother was the writer and later management consultant Herbert Leger .

After graduating from high school, Peter Leger attended the arts and crafts school in Brno from 1942, but was soon drafted into the armed forces. After the war he remained in American captivity until 1946. Then he went to northern Germany, where his mother was now living. His father did not survive the war; he died of blood poisoning towards the end of the war.

Peter Leger settled in Schwarmstedt and initially financed his life by painting landscapes and began to draw. At first it was humorous illustrations for the daily press, from 1947 political caricatures became his artistic focus as "drawn editorials". In 1948 he was honored with the second prize at the German Press Exhibition in Hanover.

In 1950 Leger met his future wife Gisela, whom he married in 1951. She brought a son into the marriage. Peter Leger settled in Hanover and had two daughters. He worked for major daily newspapers and magazines, party and trade union papers. In March 1959, the SPD newspaper “Arbeit und Freiheit” published a caricature of his in which Peter Leger portrayed the then Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss as a “carpet bite”. Strauss reported him. The Bonn jury sentenced the draftsman two years later to a fine of 300 marks. Der Spiegel reported on this in its April 26, 1961 edition. From 1963 until his death, Peter Leger was part of the "house draftsman" tribe of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In addition to Peter Leger, these were the cartoonists Gabor Benedek , Ernst Hürlimann , Ernst Maria Lang , Marie Marcks , Luis Murschetz , Gustav Peichl (Ironimus) and Ivan Steiger .

Peter Leger died on October 17, 1991 at the age of 67. The collection of his caricatures is in the Haus der Geschichte , Bonn.

Literature (selection)

  • The daily cartoon, a selection of the year by the Hanover press. Hanover 1950
  • Manfred Menzel: Justice and caricature: two worlds. The "Leger case" as a model case for all caricaturists. 1961
  • SZ caricade. The illustrators of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Munich 1970
  • Herwig Guratzsch (Ed.): 5 cartoonists. Fritz Behrendt. Pepsch Gottscheber. Walter Hanel. Peter Leger. Fritz Wolf. (Exhibition catalog). Self-published by the Wilhelm-Busch-Gesellschaft, Hanover 1980

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Leger, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leger, Peter Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION political cartoonist
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1991