Reinhard Michl

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Reinhard Michl (born June 18, 1948 in Hausen , Lower Bavaria ) is a German draftsman, illustrator and author, especially of children's books.

Life

Michl spent the first years of his childhood in his native Hausen in Lower Bavaria. Already at the age of three he developed the fun of drawing, especially the animals as he experienced them in his rural surroundings. After moving to Kelheim an der Donau in 1952 , he attended the school there, which he found to be strict and amusing in Prussian terms . He was more drawn to the valleys of Altmühl and Danube and their floodplains , where adventures like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn could be experienced. In 1962 he began a three-year typesetting apprenticeship , which he finished as a journeyman. He then attended the vocational school in Regensburg , which he completed in 1968.

After passing the entrance examination at the Academy for the Graphic Arts , Reinhard Michl was able to start studying in the autumn of 1969, which he completed in 1973 with a diploma as a graphic designer (FHS) at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich , into which the Academy is now integrated as a design department was. The subject of his diploma thesis was the design of the publishing house. The course was too much tailored to the field of advertising for his taste, a direction he did not want to pursue any further.

Reinhard Michl therefore began another course in the same year, this time at the Academy of Fine Arts , department of art education , still in Munich. He had already traveled since college, including a. to Scandinavia, Ireland and Portugal. In 1977 he interrupted his studies and spent a few months in Ireland. During this time he decided to give up his teaching career and continued his studies at the academy in a free painting class, which he graduated with a diploma in 1980.

In 1987 he and friends moved into a house in Uffing am Staffelsee , where he set up a painting studio. He moved his Munich apartment from Solln to Maxvorstadt in 2002 .

Artistic creation

Reinhard Michl - supported by one of his vocational school teachers - made his first poster designs, for example for school events, at the time of his apprenticeship as typesetter in the early 1960s. During his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in the 1970s, he devoted himself to nude drawings and discovered his fondness for Alfred Kubin .

In 1974 he received the first commission for a children's book illustration: The knee from the wall , a small volume with ghost stories by Josef Guggenmos . The book Der Wunderbaum with his drawings made it onto the shortlist for the German Youth Literature Prize . Other works illustrated by him during this period were Der Findefuchs (text by Irina Korschunow ), a new edition by Jim Knopf (text by Michael Ende ) and Es knockft bei Wanja im Nacht (text by Tilde Michels ). In 1985 A Day at the River was published , the first book for which he also wrote the text.

However, his focus remained illustrations for children's books, be it the graphic additions to their texts, the design of picture books or the decoration of song books. In 2005 Heinrich Heine appeared for young and old on the 150th anniversary of the poet's death. With Bilder Buch Leben , Reinhard Michl wrote an autobiographical work in 2008 that contains many of his sketches in particular.

Already in his student days he began to travel many times, which stimulated his work. Since the 1990s, this has also included workshops such as a. in Manila , Athens , Dublin , Cairo , Beirut , Almaty , Seoul and Minsk . Many of them were organized by the local Goethe Institutes . He also passed on his knowledge in Germany. In 2005 he conducted a master class for the third time as part of the Irsee Summer Academy . In addition to his workshops and courses, he showed a young audience in the form of readings in schools and libraries how pictures are created for books.

Reinhard Michl also made moving pictures for television from his drawings. Some examples are Micha and his brothers for the Bayerischer Rundfunk 1983, Leo Löwe for the broadcast with the mouse of the ARD 1989 and Wuschelbär for the broadcast Siebenstein of the ZDF 1992. In 2005 the Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast the television portrait As from the picture book in the series Lifelines .

Reinhard Michl had his first solo exhibition in 1980 in the International Youth Library in Munich, to which he remained connected to further exhibitions in 1998 and 2008. His works could also be seen in other places, internationally often combined with his workshops, nationally predominantly in the Bavarian region, but also in Oldenburg and Hanover .

Awards

Works (in selection)

literature

  • International Youth Library (Ed.): Reinhard Michl - Illustrations. Munich 1998, DNB 954390032 .
  • Reinhard Michl: Pictures book life - sketches, drawings and pictures from 30 years. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-34508-8 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Michl, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German children's book illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Hausen (Lower Bavaria)