the following caricatures are from several issues of the german SIMPLICISSIMUS magazine during the year 1912. JOE GRANT, who owned a large collection of this political publication, allowed me to make copies. his favorite artist was next to OLAF GULBRANSSON – RAGNVALD BLIX. BLIX, 1882 – 1958, was a norwegian national who lived most of his life abroad. he was a completely self-taught artist and some critics said, he was the greatest character analyst among cartoonists in his time. after a big success in paris with the magazine LE JOURNAL blix was firmly associated with SIMPLICISSIMUS in munich from 1908 to 1918. there blix was able to meet the radical political elite, the brothers THOMAS and HEINRICH MANN, HERMANN HESSE, FRANK WEDEKIND, LUDWIG THOMA, THOMAS THEODOR HEINE and OLAF GULBRANSSON. in his caricatures blix was considerably sharper in edge than the more consillatory gulbransson.
© blix / simplizissimus
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 really like the balance between those strong characters, the white spaces and the line artwork. Great stuff!
amazing drawings!!! thanks for post Hans ))))
Really fabulous – especially the hands !
As Hitler reached power, Gulbransson stayed, comfortably, in Nazi Germany but Blix went back to Norway. When the Germans invaded Norway, Blix joined the resistance and drew political pamphlets from the underground. To avoid been identified, made his drawing look amateurish and maladroit. It must have been an incredibly difficult thing to do for an artist of such exquisite and refined style
That’s some interesting background info… how amazing to hear that he kept his artistic dignity and left for the more dangerous role of opposing the Nazis with his cartoons. Indeed it must have been a challenge for him to “dumb down” his drawings, do you know if any of them still exist? I’m terribly curious!
Hello, I hope someone can help me. I’m trying to find the copyright holder for Ragnvald Blix’s cartoon of Vidkun Quisling meeting Hitler. “I am Quisling.” “And your name?”.
Thanks,
Claire
this stuff is so very great, but very hard to find. thank you!
I hope you do Karl Arnold. I think Gahan Wilson was deeply influnced by him.
Hi Hans,
I’ve just been informed by my dad the beautiful reference to Sylvia mum in here https://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/style-9-2/
Words cannot describe my surprise, to see her just below Edelmann.
It’s funny because we discovered this a few days ago, right after our birthdays (I was born the 2nd and my dad the 1st) I guess destiny sent us a wonderful present…🙂
Anyway, as for the main theme-
it’s amazing how this man can handle a few lines and make perspective believable. The HD is great too. Thank you for the share, as always Mr. H… I want boldness and expressionism in my drawings too X)
Today I was talking about these two geniuses with my Norwegian window cleaner. He thought very well about Blix but felt uncomfortable about Gulbransson (Whom I consider the artist wit a bit more edge of the two)…None the less he thinks that Munch is high above everybody else.
love these….thanks Hans….great line, great caricature…..going to start tracking down simplizissimus
from hans –
in the links on the right you find
http://simplicissimus.info/
the complete online simplizissimus editions. you just have to search through them.
and there are a lot…