Wilhelm Eigener

Wilhelm Eigener (born March 13, 1904 in Holzminden ; † October 9, 1982 in Hamburg ) was a German animal illustrator and graphic artist.

Life

Wilhelm Eigener comes from a family of artists. The ancestors were icon painters from Ulm who later emigrated to Moscow, where they built a paint factory. After the fire in the city, they returned to Germany and settled in Holzminden on the Weser. After graduating from high school, Eigener completed an apprenticeship as a painter. From 1920 to 1924 he studied art with Albert Aereboe at the Kunstgewerbeschule Kassel, with Arthur Illies at the Kunstgewerbeschule Hamburg and with Ludwig Bartning and Oskar Hermann Werner Hadank at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts in Berlin.

Wilhelm Eigener worked from 1930 to 1938 as chief draftsman at the Friedländer printing company , a Hamburg printing company that specialized in circus and artist posters. During World War II he served as a soldier in Poland and Russia. After illustrating some fairy tale books after the war, he became one of the most sought-after German animal and nature book illustrators from the 1950s onwards. His lifelike watercolor drawings can be found in many animal, nature and biology books, but also on the covers of zoo guides at the Berlin zoo. In order to be able to observe the animals up close, Eigener undertook study trips through Africa in 1956, 1959 and 1965, including to Cairo , Cape Town , Zanzibar , the Congo jungle, the Namib desert and the Skeleton Coast in southwest Africa. In 1977 he traveled to Iran and 1979 to India. From 1978 to 1980 Eigener acted as a scientific advisor for the ARD early evening series World of Animals , which was moderated by Dietmar Schönherr .

Eigener worked independently for over 30 years, including as a house draftsman for the Hagenbeck Zoo . His best-known book is Die Enzyklopädie der Tiere (1971), in which 4,000 animal species, several of them for the first time, are shown in color. He also worked as an illustrator on the encyclopedia Grzimek's animal life .

A large part of his works is archived in the Biohistoricum in the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn.

Exhibitions

• 1964 at the Frankfurt Zoo at the invitation of Bernhard Grzimek
• 1967 at Commerzbank in Hamburg-Bergedorf
• 1976 in the Bad Bevensen spa
• 1984–1985 special exhibition of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg

Awards

• 1977 Award of the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1979 Appointment as a member with gold medal of the Academia Italia
• 1982 Academia Italia Golden Centaur

Works that were illustrated by Eigener

• 1947–1953: Carpathian bears, Parus Verlag
• 1948: German folk tales (author: Gottfried Henßen ), Löwes Verlag, Stuttgart
• 1953: The world of mammals (author: Otto Fehringer), Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Munich
• 1954: Forester Specht and his foxes, Bayrische Verlagsanstalt
• 1955: Two riders, two horses, Egmont Franz Schneider Verlag
• 1955: Perlen Kraken Haie (Author: Ben Harder), Ensslin & Laiblin Verlag, Reutlingen
• 1960: The animal kingdom according to Brehm (authors: Peter Rietschel , Alfred Brehm )
• 1963: Plants and animals of Europe (author: Harry Garms ), Georg Westermann Verlag, Braunschweig
• 1963: Mammals of the World (Author: Hans Hvass ), Gebrüder Weiß Verlag, Berlin-Schöneberg
• 1964: Uganda (Author: Otto Willscher)
• 1964: Birds of the World (Author: Hans Hvass), Gebrüder Weiß Verlag, Berlin-Schöneberg
• 1966: Fish of the World (Author: Hans Hvass), Gebrüder Weiß Verlag, Berlin-Schöneberg
• 1967: Ullstein Lexicon of Animals
• 1968: Grzimeks Animal Life (Editor: Bernhard Grzimek)
• 1971: Encyclopedia of Animals (compilation & texts: Wilhelm Eigener, texts by scientists from the University of Hamburg & Munich, Manfred Pawlak Verlag, Hamburg)
• 1974: What lives where on earth? (Author: Wilhelm Eigener, collaboration: Dr. Dieter Lorch (botany)), Olde Hansen publishing house, Hamburg
• 1976: Animals and plants of the earth (also author), Verlag Olde Hansen
• 1979: My most beautiful animal pictures. (Author: Wilhelm Eigener, collaboration: Dr. Angelika Grettmann-Werner) Bertelsmann Reinhard Mohn GmbH, Gütersloh
• 1982: Large colored animal dictionary. 4000 colored animal pictures (author), Georg Westermann Verlag

Further illustrations can be found in various magazines such as Das Tier , Sielmanns Tierwelt and Medizin Today .

literature

• Hamburger Abendblatt No. 224 of September 25, 1968, p. 8: "A painting zoologist".
• Dr. Angelika Grettmann-Werner: Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926) depicting animals between science and art, TORO Verlag, Hamburg, 1981, p. 115 ff.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Eigener in the catalog of the German National Library