Till de Kock

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Till de Kock (actually Joseph de Kock , * 1915 ; † November 3, 2010 ) was a German wood sculptor and puppet maker.

Life

De Kock produced around 30,000 hand puppets , marionettes and stick figures of various styles in a good 60 years . Around half of all figures that could be seen on the Schleswig-Holstein puppet stages in the 1960s came from de Kock.

De Kock, who was initially based in Kiel-Schilksee and later in the Harz region, became famous as the second carver after Theo Eggink of the Hohnsteiner Puppet Shows , especially the playgroup under the puppeteer Friedrich Arndt . For the Hohnstein stage Friedrich Arndt he created both stage characters and puppets for numerous Hohnstein TV films and for the children's TV series Kasper and René ( WDR ). Most of the covers of the long-playing record series Der Hohnsteiner Kasper and those of Verkehrskasper radio plays also show characters by Till de Kock.

When de Kock initially created his dolls closely based on the figure types devised by Theo Eggink, over the years he developed more and more of his own style and - after initial discomfort and lengthy discussions with Friedrich Arndt - even broke away completely from the Hohnstein family typical carving shape and made turned doll heads for Arndt's musical pantomime The Sounding Carpet .

Figures based on the types of the Hohnsteiner always remained de Kock's trademark. His carvings were copied by numerous imitators (sometimes under his guidance), but none of them ever got the “cut” characteristic of de Kock. Till de Kock's figures can be seen on numerous puppet stages to this day.

Till de Kock only closed his workshop in 2003 at the age of almost 90. His last puppet head, as well as his rebuilt workshop and a large number of his historical stage figures, are on display in the Museum for Puppet Theater Culture in Bad Kreuznach . In addition, numerous Kock figures (including a complete ensemble for The Robber Hotzenplotz by Otfried Preußler as well as sets of figures for the fairy tales Rumpelstiltskin and The Frog King or Iron Heinrich by the Brothers Grimm ) can be seen on the stage of the Luna Puppet Theater and are in various other private homes Collections.

literature

  • Friedrich Arndt: From my life as a puppeteer , Hamburg 1986
  • Friedrich Arndt (Ed.): 50 Years of Hohnsteiner , Hamburg 1971
  • Astrid Fülbier: Hand puppet and marionette theater in Schleswig-Holstein 1920–1960 , Kiel 2002
  • Astrid Fülbier: The figure maker Till de Kock - A legend and its environment , Frankfurt / M. 2015
  • Gerd J. Pohl: On the second stage , Bergisch Gladbach 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. repertoire