He went away “see the night” definitively. The illustrator of children’s classics Wolf Erlbruch died on December 11 at the age of 74, his German publisher Hanser Literatur announced on Thursday December 15.
“With him, we lose an artist with an inimitable visual language, whose unusual use of technique [picturale] continues to set the tone today” soulful Hanser literaturewhich published most of the works of the designer of Of the little mole who wanted to know who had done it on his headof A commotion at Madame K, from Duck, Death and the Tulip, or evenLet’s see the night.
“Our house and, more broadly, the youth edition lose a great figure” has reacted its main French publisher, Milan Jeunesse, recalling that the illustrator was “multiple”.
Unusual subjects
After a successful start to his career in advertising, Wolf Erlbruch turned to children’s illustration in 1985, with equal success. The illustrator, who sometimes also took the pen for some albums, has – among other things – twice received the price of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (in 1999 for witch kitchen and in 2004 for The Big Question), twice the Sorcières prize (in 1994 for Of the little mole who wanted to know who had done it on his headthen in 2005 for The Big Question), as well as two other lifetime achievement awards: the Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Award in 2006 and the Astrid-Lindgren Memorial Award in 2017.
Born on June 30, 1948 in Wuppertal, the German illustrator had taken to heart during his career to use his art to approach unusual subjects with his young audience: death, the meaning of life, but also research. of justice, in Of the little mole who wanted to know who had done it on his head – his bestseller, about a mole looking for the one who left a huge turd on his head.