Klaus Wittkugel (17 October 1910 – 19 September 1985) was one of the most important commercial and

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

artists in the German Democratic Republic (1949–1989). For many years he was also a professor at the Berlin-Weißensee Arts Academy.

Life

Wittkugel was born in Kiel in the extreme north of

the country ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. His father was a businessman. Klaus Wittkugel himself undertook a commercial training in Hamburg between 1927 and 1929, while also attending the Hamburg State Arts Academy, and then studied in

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

at the Folkwang University of the Arts till 1932. Here he was a master-scholar of

Max Burchartz Max Hubert Innocenz Maria Burchartz (1887–1961) was a German photographer. Life Max Burchartz was the son of a fabric manufacturer, Otto Burchartz and his wife Maria. After his basic schooling he received training in his father's weaving m ...

. He then relocated to Berlin where between 1932 and 1935 he was employed as a commercial artist by a retail chain. From 1935 till 1937 he headed up a studio with a Berlin advertising agency, after which he worked in Berlin as a freelance commercial artist until war intervened. He was conscripted for military service in 1939 and spent the war first as a soldier and then as a prisoner of war. War ended in May 1945, leaving what remained of Germany divided into zones of military occupation. Berlin was at the centre of a region administered as the

Soviet zone of occupation The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...

which in October 1949 would be relaunched as the German Democratic Republic. In 1946 Klaus Wittkugel joined the newly formed Socialist Unity Party of Germany (''Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands'' / SED) which in 1949 became the ruling party in the new Soviet sponsored East German state. In the meantime, between 1945 and 1949 he was employed as a

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

in the German (effectively ''East German'') Central Commerce and Supply Department. He went on to work as the chief graphic artist for the Information Department till 1952. In 1949 he also obtained a teaching post at the Berlin-Weißensee Arts Academy, where he became a professor in 1952. He retained the professorship till his retirement in 1975. During these years he lived at an address in the much prized "Intellectuals' District" on the north side of

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

, close to "Street 201".

Memberships

In 1950 Klaus Wittkugel was a founding member of the East German League of Visual Artists, membership of which quickly became, for practical purposes, mandatory for those wishing to pursue a career in the visual arts. He was the first chairman of The League's Graphic Artists' Section, and from 1984 an honorary member. He became a member of the national

Academy of Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

in 1961, serving as that prestigious institution's vice-president between 1968 and 1974. He was a member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Postage Stamps Commission in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

Postage stamp design Postage stamp design is the activity of graphic design as applied to postage stamps. Many thousands of designs have been created since a profile bust of Queen Victoria was adopted for the Penny Black in 1840; some designs have been considered v ...

was important in the German Democratic Republic and it was a subject on which Wittkugel was influential. In addition he designed a succession of stamps and stamp booklet covers.

Honours

* 1958:

National Prize of East Germany The National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) (german: Nationalpreis der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik) was an award of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) given out in three different classes for scientific, artistic, ...

* 1960: Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze * 1963: Patriotic Order of Merit in silver * 1969: Patriotic Order of Merit in gold * 1970:

* 1975: Johannes R. Becher Medal * 1979: GDR Trades Union Federation Arts Prize * 1980: Patriotic Order of Merit gold clasp * 1982: Hans Grundig Medal

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittkugel, Klaus German printmakers German poster artists German stamp designers Academic staff of the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany 1910 births 1985 deaths East German artists Artists from Kiel