Fritz Wegner (15 September 1924 – 15 March 2015) was an Austrian-born illustrator, resident in the United Kingdom from 1938.
Early life and exile
Fritz Wegner was born in Vienna on 15 September 1924 into a family of assimilated Jews. Following the Anschluss, a drawing he made of Adolf Hitler to amuse his classmates enraged a Nazi-supporting teacher at his school. As a result, he suffered a terrible beating. His parents arranged for the 13-year-old Fritz to leave Austria, alone, in August 1938 for London. They and his sister were later able to join him in exile.[1]
Education
On the strength of a sketch of a man drawn from memory, he was offered a scholarship to St Martin's School of Art at the age of 14, together with accommodation in Hampstead Garden Suburb with the family of one of his tutors, George Mansell, who also taught him English. Wegner paid his way by helping in Mansell's studio.[2]
As Wegner recalled in an interview: “It was an extremely generous thing to do and indeed I lived with them for several years, learning everything I later knew about lettering, penmanship, gilding and the Roman alphabet. That was the start of an early passion, after which I moved on to doing illustrations.”[1] He studied at St. Martins School of Art from 1939 to 1942.
Career
In 1942 he was classified as a "friendly enemy alien" and assigned to war work on the land in Buckinghamshire, gaining further education from his co-workers, mostly conscientious objectors. He also managed to obtain an appointment as a poster artist for the Buckinghamshire War Agricultural Committee. While living in Buckinghamshire he met the journalist Janet Barber, who was living in a nearby village and they were married two years later.[1] He also submitted cartoons to the Evening Star and later became a lodger in London with the editor of the paper's diary column. Establishing himself in London after the war he became a freelance graphic artist.[2]
Wegner began his long career as a freelance illustrator by working for the magazine Lilliput and drawing book jackets for a range of publishers.[1]Hamish Hamilton was the first publishing house to launch him as an illustrator. During a long relationship with the company he worked on book covers and jackets for adult and children's books, and illustrations for a wide range of children's books.[2] He drew the covers for the English editions of The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. He illustrated religious works by Dorothy L. Sayers such as The Story of Noah's Ark (1956), The Story of Adam and Christ (1953), and The Days of Christ's Coming, (1960) in a slightly medieval style.[1] Some of his illustrations for Mordecai Richler's Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (1975) riff off and rework George Cruikshank's illustrations for Oliver Twist.[3]
Working constantly to support a family of three children, Wegner undertook a range of illustration work for John Bull, Puffin Annual, Radio Times, Farmers Weekly, Everywoman, Woman, and Beauty, as well as postage stamps for Christmas[4] and other festivities and, from 1973, a string of drawings for the American children's magazine, Cricket, which featured running commentary by insect characters.[1]
His work is noted for its historical detail and gentle irreverent humour. One of his most reprinted works is his illustrations for Fattypuffs and Thinifers: “It gave me the opportunity to test my invention and humour, the two ingredients I most wanted to bring to my drawings”.[5] Speaking of his creative process in an interview in 2001, Wegner told Tom Morgan-Jones:
"My one regret is that my roughs are very often better than the finished artwork. They’re more spontaneous, they have a greater creative sparkle and you don’t have to worry too much about sizes and all the constraints you normally have to work with."[6]
Wegner developed a collaborative partnership with Allan Ahlberg, particularly after the death of Ahlberg's wife Janet, his co-author and illustrator, in 1994.[2]
Wegner was twice shortlisted for the Kurt Maschler Award (for a "work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other"), the first time for his illustrations for Michael Rosen's Till Owlyglass, and then for his work for Brian Alderson's The Tale of the Turnip.[2]
Wegner married Janet Barber in 1945, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. His wife and children all survived him. He spent his leisure time painting for pleasure and was a collector of books, paintings, and engravings, as well as of musical instruments and china.[2]
He died on 15 March 2015 and was buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.[1]
Bibliography
"The Cats and Rosemary" by Frank Swinnerton (1950)
"Beginner's Luck" by Oriel Malet (1952)
"The Story of Adam and Christ" by Dorothy L. Sayers (1953)
"Enid Blyton's Christmas Story" (1953)
"The House of the Wind" by Averil Demuth (1953)
"The funny guy" by Grace Allen Hogarth (1955)
"The Story of Noah's Ark" by Dorothy L. Sayers (1956
"The Impractical Chimney-Sweep" by Rosemary Anne Sisson (1956)
"The Saintmaker's Christmas Eve" by Paul Horgan (1956)
"Star Girl" by Henry Winterfeld (Translated by Kyrill Schabert) (1957)
"The Days of Christ's Coming" by Dorothy L. Sayers (1960)
"The Hamish Hamilton book of princesses" Selected by Sally Patrick Johnson (1963)
"The Hamish Hamilton Book of Princes" Selected by Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson (1964)
"Wizards and Witches" by Frances Wilkins (1965)
"Mother Courage" by Hans Jacob Christoffel von GRIMMELSHAUSEN (Translated by Walter Wallich) (1965)
"A third French book" by W. F. H. Whitmarsh (1965)
"Grimm's fairy tales" by Amabel Williams-Ellis (1965)
"The ghost in the noonday sun" by Sid Fleischman (1966)
"Baron Munchausen's Marvellous Travels & Adventures" by Raspe R E (translated by Janet Barber) (1967)
^Lathey, Gillian (2002). "Eulenspiegel to Owlyglass: The Impact of the Work of the Exiled Illustrators and Fritz Wegner on British Children's Literature". In Grenville, Anthony (ed.). Refugees from the Third Reich in Britain (The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies). Editions Rodopi B.V. p. 109. ISBN978-9042011045.
^Morgan-Jones, Tom (28 April 2015) [First published 2001 in the journal Line (No2: Children's Books), a journal on the subject of drawing and illustration from the Cambridge School of Art in Anglia Ruskin University.], "A Lunch with Fritz Wegner", Frances McKay Illustration, retrieved 1 May 2015
