karl arnold

KARL ARNOLD, 1883 – 1953, was one of the leading caricaturists and illustrators of the first half of the 20th century in Germany. KARL ARNOLD studied drawing in his native Neustadt before entering the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1901, where he trained under the artists Karl Raupp, Ludwig Löfftz and Franz von Stuck, and where among his fellow students were Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. in 1907 Arnold contributed his first illustration to the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, with which he was to be closely associated for much of his later career. Arnold spent some months in Paris between 1910 and 1911 from where he continued to contribute illustrations for Simplicissimus and its rival, the art and literary journal Jugend. in 1913 Arnold was, along with Kandinsky and Alexej von Jawlensky, one of the founders of the Neue Münchener Sezession (New Munich Secession) group, and contributed to its first exhibition, held the following year. between 1934 and 1936 he served as the director of Simplicissimus, and in 1936 engaged in an exclusive contract as a cartoonist for the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung. beset by illness and following a stroke in 1943, Arnold produced very little work before his death in 1953, not long after being appointed an honorary member of the Academy in Munich. Arnold’s graphic work began to be recognized again in the 1970’s, with a retrospective of his drawings and caricatures held in Berlin and elsewhere in 1975 and an exhibition dedicated to Simplicissimus at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 1977. as has been noted of Arnold’s illustrations, ‘his unique quality as an artist is the brilliant characterisation of types and the extraordinarily telling conjunction of picture and caption.’
( from stephen ongpin fine art )

© karl arnold / simpicissimus

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gulbransson

OLAF LEONARD GULBRANSSON, 1873 – 1958, was a Norwegian artist, painter and designer. he is probably best known for his caricatures and illustrations.
from 1890, he worked for many Norwegian magazines. in 1900 he studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, and moved in 1902 to Germany to work for the satirical magazine Simplicissimus in Munich after editor Albert Langen had been in contact with author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson looking for Norwegian talent. with publicity increasing Gulbransson’s fame, and even though he lived in Germany between 1923 and 1927, he drew for the Norwegian Tidens tegn newspaper.
in 1929 he became Professor at the art academy in Munich. the art academy in Berlin arranged a special exhibition in 1933 to celebrate Gulbransson’s 60th birthday, which was shut down by the Nazi party after only two days.
Simplicissimus editors Franz Schoenberner and Thomas Theodor Heine have claimed that Gulbransson actively cooperated with the Nazis from 1933 on, and this co-operation was sharply criticized by the writer Klaus Mann. during World War II, after his own home country was occupied by the Germans, he produced caricatures against the Allies, in particular against Winston Churchill. in 1941 he was made an honorary member of the Society of Berlin Artists and in 1942 of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1943 he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science and was made Emeritus Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
( from wikipedia )

see as well my earlier posts – here and here

© gulbransson, simplicissimus

more blix

Ragnvald Blix, 1882 – 1958, was a Norwegian illustrator, caricaturist and magazine editor. he was particularly known for his anti-Nazi drawings World War II.
Ragnvald Blix was born in Oslo, the son of a theologian and Norwegian minister of the church. Blix was an entirely self-taught artist. he quickly gave up studying painting, he preferred to draw caricatures. when his older friend Olaf Gulbransson moved to Germany in 1902, Blix followed him as a cartoonist for the Tyrihans newspaper. an inheritance enabled him to travel through Europe in 1903. from 1904-08 he stayed in Paris and worked for the satirical magazine L’Assiette au Beurre, among others. In 1907 a first drawing in Simplicissimus appeared and in 1908 Blix moved to Munich, publication city of the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, where he lived until 1918. after a short stopover in Oslo, where he founded the magazine Exlex (bird-free) in february 1919 based on the model of Simplicissimus, he moved with it to Copenhagen only nine months later, where he spent the rest of his life. after two years, however, Blix had to give up the magazine again. from then on he worked for various Scandinavian newspapers and magazines. after the occupation of Denmark by Germany during the Second World War, Blix fled to Sweden, where he was able to continue working. after the war he returned to Denmark.
between 1907 and 1925 Blix published 466 drawings in Simplicissimus. Two contributions appeared in the Munich youth. Blix was internationally active, published for example in the New York Times and in Swedish newspapers.
his drawings were initially characterized by a combination of line and surface, as is typical of the art of Jugendstil. However, as early as 1908, he took up Gulbransson’s clear line drawing, which he was in no way inferior to in his ability to characterize contemporary politicians. in the 1930s, biting anti-Hitler caricatures were created and even in Swedish exile he was able to expose leading Nazi politicians under the pseudonym Stig Höök.
( from german wikipedia )
see as well my earlier post

JOE GRANT, who had the complete edition of the german magazine SIMPLICISSIMUS in big volumes in his house, was the first to introduce me to BLIX. in the beginning I was more in favor of GULBRANSSON’S style and characters, and we had discussions about the two artists. joe preferred BLIX, and now after so many years I understand why. you can judge yourself, today with some of BLIX work, tomorrow GULBRANSSON will follow. whoever might be your favorite, I think everybody can get a lot of inspiration out of the two absolute masters of caricature.

© simplicissimus, blix

style 9.6

style 9.5

artists have always been inspired by other artists. otherwise impressionism or cubism had never developed and been explored by so many different artists. in animation disney first used children book illustrators like tenggren and nielsen as inspiration for the style of the first feature films. UPA was smaller and could afford to experiment with new looks, using modern art like dufy and modigliany, but as well upcoming cartoon and caricature stars like steinberg, searle and kurtzman for inspiration. later john hubley went even further with his shorts and a complete abstract look influenced by picasso, shahn and prestopino. I could continue this until today, where modern filmmakers get excited by art they accidentally find on the internet. it is so much easier today to look for reference or inspiration, everybody has a vast collection of art from museums, books, auctions or collectors at home available on the world wide web.
I was always interested to find out how looks were developed in the past. it was like a guideline for my own work, to find ways for developing new styles. now I am trying to teach those secrets to new generations. difficult, because you have to first learn about all the existing art in the world, figurative and landscape or environmental art, get enough knowledge about films of the past – and, experience by analysis how the look of the most interesting films was developed. the real challenge starts when you try to develop your own style for a project. one piece is already tough, but then the problem is to create a whole series of environments in the same style.

more t.s.sullivant

another rare SULLIVANT masterpiece in color

© sullivant

t.s.sullivant

one of the rare SULLIVANT illustrations in color. from the nancy beiman collection, thank you nancy

© t.s.sullivant

olaf gulbransson 2

more from OLAF GULBRANSSON and the SIMPLICISSIMUS, all reproduced some years ago from JOE GRANT’S amazing collection.

© olaf gulbransson

olaf gulbransson 1

recently I found this interesting article in a german magazine from the mid-fifties. it features caricatures created by OLAF LEONARD GULBRANSSON, 1873 – 1958, together with some rare photos of the master in his typical ‘work-outfit’. GULBRANSSON was born in norway but lived after his studies in paris in munic, germany. besides being professor at the art academy in munic he worked for the satirical magazine SIMPLICISSIMUS and contributed numerous caricatures. I will have some more of his work in one of my next posts.

© gulbransson

caricatures 1

the following caricatures were created by NICOLAS MARLET as far as I remember in 1992, at that time STEPHEN SPIELBERG’S animation studio in london ( acton ) – AMBLIMATION – was still busy with the feature film WE’RE BACK. you could hear many different languages, a lot of young animators from all over the world, but mainly europe, were working there on one huge floor divided into small cubicles. we used to caricature each other, just for fun. and NICOLAS was one of the best artists for sure!

© nicolas marlet

blix

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