Heinrich Zille
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Heinrich Zille German
illustrator
and photographer, was born in Radeburg
near Dresden
, as the son of watchmaker
Johann Traugott Zill (Zille since 1854) and Ernestine Louise (born Heinitz, daughter of a miner
from the Ore mountains
). In 1867, his family moved to Berlin
, where he finished school in 1872 and started an apprenticeship as a lithographer.
In 1883, he married Hulda Frieske, with whom he had three children. She died in 1919.
Zille became best known for his (often funny) drawings, catching the characteristics of people, especially "stereotypes", mainly from Berlin and many of them published in the German weekly satirical newspaper Simplicissimus
.
He was first to portray the desperate social environment
of the Berlin Mietskasernen (literally "tenement barracks
"), buildings packed with sometimes a dozen persons per room who fled from the rural regions to the rising Gründerzeit
industrial metropolis only to find even deeper poverty in the developing proletarian class.
His special talent was the scathingly humorous portrayal of what were in reality quite unfunny life conditions of handicapped beggars, tuberculous prostitutes, menial labourers, and especially their children, making the best they could of life and resolutely refusing to give up.
Zille did not feel himself a real artist: he often said that his work was not the result of talent but merely of hard work. Max Liebermann
nevertheless promoted him. He called him into the Berlin Secession
in 1903, put his works in expositions of the upper class, and encouraged him to sell drawings - and when Zille lost his job as a lithographer in 1910 he encouraged him to live from his drawings alone.
The Berlin "Common People
" paid him the greatest respect, and very late in life his fame culminated when both poverty and freedom of expression reached new heights in the roaring twenties
, with the National Gallery
buying some drawings in 1921, the Academy of the Arts
honouring him with a professorship in 1924, and Gerhard Lamprecht
making the movie Die Verrufenen based on his cartoon characters and stories in 1925. His 70th birthday in 1928 was celebrated throughout Berlin. He died one year later.
It is less known that he was the artist of many erotic pictures which are close to pornography but also show the life of normal people. Some of them can be seen in the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum
in Berlin.
In 1983 director Werner W. Wallroth made an East German movie based on a musical written by Dieter Wardetzky and Peter Rabenalt. This movie Zille und Ick (Zille and I in Berlin Dialect) isn't a real biopic but uses parts of Zille's life for the story.
A drawing by Zille appears on a German postage stamp of 55 Euro-Cents, with the caption "Heinrich Zille, 1858-1929".
Heinrich Zille was born in the little town of Radeburg
(near Dresden
) in Saxony
. Zille spent his early years in Potschappel.
Heinrich Zille's childhood was not without trouble. His father was incarcerated several times in debtor's prison
and creditors harassed the family so much that the young Zille was often sent to live with his grandmother. In 1867 the family left town because of their debt and went to Berlin
.
While still in school the young Zille began to take drawing lessons. The teacher was supportive, and during a discussion of his future career aspirations, the teacher encouraged Zille to become a lithographer.
Zille's father wanted Heinrich to become a butcher. Heinrich could not stand the sight of blood, however, so he went to the draughtsman
Fritz Hecht, on Jakobstraße (Jakob street), for his education.
Zille's great-grandniece is Helen Zille
, the former mayor of Cape Town
and Premier of the Western Cape
province in South Africa
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and photographer, was born in Radeburg
Radeburg
Radeburg is a town in the district of Meißen, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated 19 km east of Meißen, and 18 km north of Dresden. The main tourist attraction is the narrow-gauge Radebeul-Radeburg railway line that connects Radeburg and Radebeul via Moritzburg. The...
near Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, as the son of watchmaker
Watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since virtually all watches are now factory made, most modern watchmakers solely repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand...
Johann Traugott Zill (Zille since 1854) and Ernestine Louise (born Heinitz, daughter of a miner
Miner
A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....
from the Ore mountains
Ore Mountains
The Ore Mountains in Central Europe have formed a natural border between Saxony and Bohemia for many centuries. Today, the border between Germany and the Czech Republic runs just north of the main crest of the mountain range...
). In 1867, his family moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where he finished school in 1872 and started an apprenticeship as a lithographer.
In 1883, he married Hulda Frieske, with whom he had three children. She died in 1919.
Zille became best known for his (often funny) drawings, catching the characteristics of people, especially "stereotypes", mainly from Berlin and many of them published in the German weekly satirical newspaper Simplicissimus
Simplicissimus
Simplicissimus was a satirical German weekly magazine started by Albert Langen in April 1896 and published through 1967, with a hiatus from 1944-1954. It became a biweekly in 1964...
.
He was first to portray the desperate social environment
Social environment
The social environment of an individual, also called social context or milieu, is the culture that s/he was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts....
of the Berlin Mietskasernen (literally "tenement barracks
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
"), buildings packed with sometimes a dozen persons per room who fled from the rural regions to the rising Gründerzeit
Gründerzeit
' refers to the economic phase in 19th century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. At this time in Central Europe the age of industrialisation was taking place, whose beginnings were found in the 1840s...
industrial metropolis only to find even deeper poverty in the developing proletarian class.
His special talent was the scathingly humorous portrayal of what were in reality quite unfunny life conditions of handicapped beggars, tuberculous prostitutes, menial labourers, and especially their children, making the best they could of life and resolutely refusing to give up.
Zille did not feel himself a real artist: he often said that his work was not the result of talent but merely of hard work. Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker best known for his etching and lithography.-Biography:...
nevertheless promoted him. He called him into the Berlin Secession
Berlin Secession
The Berlin Secession was an art association founded by Berlin artists in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative state-run Association of Berlin Artists. That year the official salon jury rejected a landscape by Walter Leistikow, who was a key figure amongst a group of young artists interested...
in 1903, put his works in expositions of the upper class, and encouraged him to sell drawings - and when Zille lost his job as a lithographer in 1910 he encouraged him to live from his drawings alone.
The Berlin "Common People
Common People
"Common People" is a song by English alternative rock band Pulp. It was released as a single in 1995, reaching number two on the UK singles chart. It also appears on the band's 1995 album Different Class. The song is about those who were perceived by the songwriter as wanting to be "like common...
" paid him the greatest respect, and very late in life his fame culminated when both poverty and freedom of expression reached new heights in the roaring twenties
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity. The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism...
, with the National Gallery
Alte Nationalgalerie
The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin is a gallery showing a collection of Classical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork, all of which belong to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The museum is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.- Founding...
buying some drawings in 1921, the Academy of the Arts
Akademie der Künste
The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
honouring him with a professorship in 1924, and Gerhard Lamprecht
Gerhard Lamprecht
Gerhard Lamprecht was a German film director and screenwriter. He directed 63 films between 1920 and 1958. He also wrote for 26 films between 1918 and 1958...
making the movie Die Verrufenen based on his cartoon characters and stories in 1925. His 70th birthday in 1928 was celebrated throughout Berlin. He died one year later.
It is less known that he was the artist of many erotic pictures which are close to pornography but also show the life of normal people. Some of them can be seen in the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum
Beate Uhse Erotic Museum
The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum is a sex museum in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany.It was opened in 1996 near Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station by Beate Uhse, the early stunt pilot and entrepreneur, who in 1962 started the world's first sex shop...
in Berlin.
In 1983 director Werner W. Wallroth made an East German movie based on a musical written by Dieter Wardetzky and Peter Rabenalt. This movie Zille und Ick (Zille and I in Berlin Dialect) isn't a real biopic but uses parts of Zille's life for the story.
A drawing by Zille appears on a German postage stamp of 55 Euro-Cents, with the caption "Heinrich Zille, 1858-1929".
Childhood
Heinrich Zille was the son of watchmaker Johann Traugott Zille and his wife Ernestine Louise, née Heinitz. Ernestine was a miner's daughter. His father had originally been a blacksmith; however, being technically skilled, had gone on to become a watchmaker, goldsmith and inventor of tools.Heinrich Zille was born in the little town of Radeburg
Radeburg
Radeburg is a town in the district of Meißen, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated 19 km east of Meißen, and 18 km north of Dresden. The main tourist attraction is the narrow-gauge Radebeul-Radeburg railway line that connects Radeburg and Radebeul via Moritzburg. The...
(near Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
) in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. Zille spent his early years in Potschappel.
Heinrich Zille's childhood was not without trouble. His father was incarcerated several times in debtor's prison
Debtor's prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for those who are unable to pay a debt.Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt.-Debt bondage in ancient Greece and Rome:...
and creditors harassed the family so much that the young Zille was often sent to live with his grandmother. In 1867 the family left town because of their debt and went to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
While still in school the young Zille began to take drawing lessons. The teacher was supportive, and during a discussion of his future career aspirations, the teacher encouraged Zille to become a lithographer.
Zille's father wanted Heinrich to become a butcher. Heinrich could not stand the sight of blood, however, so he went to the draughtsman
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
Fritz Hecht, on Jakobstraße (Jakob street), for his education.
Zille's great-grandniece is Helen Zille
Helen Zille
Helen Zille is the Premier of the Western Cape, a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, leader of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance political party, and a former Mayor of Cape Town.Zille is a former journalist and anti-apartheid activist, and famously exposed the truth...
, the former mayor of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
and Premier of the Western Cape
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
province in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
External links
- Available Works & Biography Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany