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the following selection of illustrations was created by WILHELM M.BUSCH from the late 1940s to the 1980s. the change of his drawing style over that period of time should be interesting to watch…

© wilhelm m.busch

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I realized how many more books illustrated by WILHELM M.BUSCH I have, and decided to prepare some more chapters about this ‘illustration giant’. his artwork below is from the book ‘LIEBE IN FRANKREICH’ ( love in france ). look how effortless these sketches were ‘written down’…

© wilhelm m.busch

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these pen&ink illustrations were created by WILHELM M.BUSCH for charles dickens’ CHRISTMAS CAROL.

© wilhelm m.busch

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WILHELM M.BUSCH created these monumental illustrations for the EMILE ZOLA 1892 novel la débâcle ( the collapse ). I selected only a few of the 60 masterpieces in this book, every single one done in a small size with a simple ballpoint pen. they could be snapshots from a david lean war drama.

© wilhelm m.busch and bertelsmann verlag

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WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated this novel written by heinrich seidel – LEBERECHT HUEHNCHEN – in 1962. it’s the life story of leberecht huehnchen in the early part of the last century in berlin, germany. to me it looks like the illustrations were done with a ballpoint pen, some in pen and ink. publishing house is bertelsmann verlag.

© wilhelm m.busch / bertelsmann verlag

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© wilhelm m.busch

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© wilhelm m.busch

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some more master-illustrations from WILHELM M.BUSCH, this time some of his color work. there will be a lot more, have to sort out the archives…

© wilhelm m.busch

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© wilhelm m.busch

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the illustrations below are from the 1955 published novel TANZPAUSE (dance break), written by VICKY BAUM and illustrated by WILHELM M.BUSCH. I am posting all 12 illustrations in a bigger size, so you can see the incredible quality of BUSCH’s artworks, all done in pencil. he creates such an atmosphere in these simple line drawings, captures moments in a way a photograph could never do. BUSCH never used any photographic reference, but he usually studied and sketched situations of his daily life, especially in the circus or during his lectures at the art academy. when you take a closer look, you can see the rough basic composition lines. the final drawing looks so effortless written down. whenever I look at his work I am speechless and in awe.

© wilhelm m.busch / bertelsmann verlag

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WILHELM M.BUSCH was before WWII and after the war in the early fifties a PRESSE-ZEICHNER, a drawing artist hired by a newspaper to cover events with drawings where no photographs were available. today you still have one job like that left, the courtroom illustrator.
the first 2 illustrations are an example for that, the next is from his time as a soldier in 1944, a pen+ink drawing. the following 2 are from 1972 and 1979.
someone asked about his technique, well – he probably did some rough outline sketch in pencil or light ballpointpen and drew right on top of that in ink. his final illustration is so loose that I can’t imagine he traced a very elaborate sketch. in some cases you can still see the sketchy lines of his rough. the classroom drawing was just ‘written’ down like that without any sketch, I am sure. I have a lot more to come form work catalogues where the reproduction quality is much better.

© wilhelm m.busch

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JOHANNA SPYRI, 1827 – 1901, was a swiss author of children stories. probably her best known book is HEIDI, what some of you might remember as a japanese ANIME series – HEIDI, GIRL OF THE ALPS, produced in 1974. the series was directed by ISAO TAKAHATA and – HAYAO MIYAZAKI did the scene design and the layout!
WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated in 1948 a collection of 6 stories by johanna spyri- AUF BERGESHOEHEN -, HEIDI AUF DER ALP was one of them. the illustrations are all drawn in pen and ink, but you can still see the influence of the woodcut technique, wilhelm busch concentrated on for a while during his studies.

© wilhelm m.busch / buchdienstverlag w.schmidt

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in 1976 WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated a collection of short stories around horses in a paperback edition of the german wilhelm heyne-verlag, DAS PARADIES DER ERDE ( paradise on earth ). there are dozens of very small printed illustrations in the book, done in pen and ink, ballpoint pen and pencil.

© wilhelm m.busch / heyne verlag muenchen

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WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated in 1969 THE YEAR OF THE CATS ( das jahr der katzen ) written by ANNA-MARIE RADKE.

© wilhelm m.busch / johannes asmus verlag hamburg / bertelsmann

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some more illustrations created by WILHELM M.BUSCH from a limited edition work catalogue published in 1983 by edition curt visel, memmingen, germany

© wilhelm m.busch / curt visel verlag

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the selected illustrations created by WILHELM M.BUSCH are from a limited edition work catalogue published in 1983 by edition curt visel, memmingen, germany.

© wilhelm m.busch / curt visel verlag

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now the continued illustrations WILHELM M.BUSCH created for ZOLA’S – LES ROUGON MACQUART…

© wilhelm m.busch / winkler verlag / bertelsmann verlag

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EMILE ZOLA, 1840 – 1902, wrote in the later part of the nineteenth century a set of twenty novels – LES ROUGON MACQUART. the series tells the story of two branches of a family during the second wave of the industrial revolution in france, with all the excesses of that time, violence, alcohol and prostitution. zola published LA FAUTE DE L’ABBEE MOURET ( the sin of father mouret ) as part of this series in 1875. the here shown illustrations, WILHELM M.BUSCH created, are taken from the german publication of winkler verlag, munich from 1975. BUSCH did these stunning masterpieces with a black ballpointpen. I don’t want to reduce the incredible drawings in size too much. that’s why there will be some more posts with the complete illustrations of the book.

© wilhelm m.busch / winkler verlag / bertelsmann verlag

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the following pen+ink illustrations were created by WILHELM M.BUSCH in 1969 for the novel THE KING OF THE CASTLES ( DER SCHLOSSHERR ) written by VICTORIA HOLT.

© wilhelm m.busch / wolfgang krueger verlag stuttgart

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WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated JIM DODGE’S novel – FUP -, written 1983, in the following year, 1984, for the berlin ULLSTEIN verlag. the story is about a duck, named FUP, who lives on a farm with an old man who believes he is immortal due to the homemade whiskey ( he got the recipe from a dying indian ) he drinks. busch created very sketchy beautiful composed pen+ink drawings, giving you the feeling of the old man’s small world seen through a wideangle lens.

© wilhelm m.busch / ullstein verlag