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Wolf Erlbruch (1948-2022) at the presentation of the »Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award«
Photo: Christine Olsson / AP / TT News Agency / picture alliance
In 2017, Wulf Erlbruch's work was crowned with the »Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award«.
It makes "existential questions accessible and manageable for readers of all ages," the statement said.
A fitting sentence for the man who illustrated the story »About the little mole who wanted to know who hit his head«, the text and the idea come from Werner Holzwarth.
work in the advertising industry
"With humor and warmth deeply rooted in humanistic ideals, his work presents the universe on our scale," the jury's statement continued.
The »Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award« established by the Swedish government in 2002 commemorates the inventor of »Pippi Longstocking« and »Michel from Lönneberga«.
With five million Swedish crowns (around 522,000 euros), the award is the most valuable of its kind in the world.
Wolf Erlbruch was born on June 30, 1948 in Wuppertal and lived there until his death.
He studied at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen and has worked since 1974 as a graphic designer in the advertising industry.
He also published in German and international magazines.
He has received multiple awards from the Art Directors Club in New York.
Wolf Erlbruch began his career as a children's book illustrator in 1985 with »The Eagle That Wouldn't Fly«.
Other well-known titles in addition to "Mole" published by Peter Hammer Verlag in 1989 are "Das Hexeneinmaleins" after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Hanser Verlag, 1998) and "Ente, Tod und Tulpe" (Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 2007).
For his work, Erlbruch received both a special prize from the German Youth Literature Prize and the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration.
From 1994 he put his mole figure into service with Deutsche Bahn, which employed Max Mole as a »construction site ambassador«.
Wolf Erlbruch taught from 1990 to 1997 as a professor of illustration at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, from 1997 to 2009 as a professor in the department of architecture, design and art at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, and from 2009 to 2011 as a professor of illustration at the Folkwang University of the Arts in food.
As Hanser Verlag announced on Monday, Wolf Erlbruch died on December 11, 2022 at the age of 74 in Wuppertal.
"With him we are losing an artist with an unmistakable visual language who, not only as an outstanding draftsman, but above all as an innovative designer and illustrator through his unusual handling of technology and image material, has been a style-defining factor for every new generation to this day," the publisher acknowledges.
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