I am sure most of you know JAN LENICA, or at least have seen an animated film, a poster, a children book, a stamp-design or even the sets and costumes of a theatre-play he designed. JAN LENICA, 1928 – 2001, grew up in warsaw, poland. together with WALERIAN BOROWCZYK he made his first animated film in 1957, a lot more followed. he settled in paris, lectured at harvard university, was the first professor of the animation class at the university of kassel, germany, and professor for poster and graphic arts at the berlin hochschule der kuenste. he said about himself – I have always liked to move at the periphery of art, at the crossing of genres. I have enjoyed combining seemingly distant elements, if not foreign, blurring the borders between adjacent areas. despite the variety of techniques, themes and genres, lenica’s cut out style is quite easy to recognize, and there is always a personal message revolving around the dilemma of human existence. he preferred to use two-dimensional forms, the space flat, no perspective. following are some captured scenes from the 1963 film DIE NASSHOERNER – THE RHINOCEROS, or also known as RHINOCERI, based on a EUGENE IONESCO short story.
© jan lenica
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
I thought W.Busch was a writer;the one who created “Max und Moritz”
Astonishing illustrations !
from hans -
they are 2 different artists, separated by even some time as well. the MAX + MORITZ artist is WILHELM BUSCH,
the younger one is WILHELM MARTIN BUSCH, and they are not connected.
When I was younger I just about idolized Jan Lenica. I was so lucky to have been able to meet him briefly in Annecy a couple of years before his death.
Great film