Michael Mathias Prechtl (April 26, 1926 – March 19, 2003) was a German artist, illustrator and cartoonist. Prechtl was born in

Amberg Amberg () is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the Upper Palatinate, roughly halfway between Regensburg and Bayreuth. In 2020, over 42,000 people lived in the town. History The town was first mentioned in 1034, at that time under t ...

. He served as a soldier on the Eastern Front during World War II and spent 1945-49 as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. He is well known for illustrating German editions of literary classics such as works by

E.T.A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...

, Thomas More, Dante, Goethe,

Benvenuto Cellini Benvenuto Cellini (, ; 3 November 150013 February 1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, and author. His best-known extant works include the ''Cellini Salt Cellar'', the sculpture of ''Perseus with the Head of Medusa'', and his autobiography ...

, and the letters of

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

. He received more publicity for the numerous front page illustrations he made for ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' in the 1980s. Prechtl was married to the artist Frydl Zuleeg in 1956. He died in Nuremberg, aged 76.

References

External links

Prechtl's World
1926 births 2003 deaths German illustrators Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg alumni German Army personnel of World War II German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union {{Germany-artist-stub