Wolf Erlbruch. Award Laureate 2017 1
anonymous sender. The book was an enormous succes
s. It was translated into around thirty languages and established Wolf Erlbruch as an illustrator and creator of children’s picturebooks. Artistic Curiosity Erlbruch’s style as an illustrator grows out of a long and robust tradition reaching back to the early twentieth century and is characterized by strong lines combined with graphic precision. Erlbruch has pushed the envelope of tradition in many directions, making significant use of collage and experimental graphic techniques to convey narrative meaning. Tracing the course of his work over time, it is clear that Wolf Erlbruch navigates by the light of his own artistic curiosity. He has said it is important for an illustrator not to get stuck in an expressive rut, and that he achieves his best creative work by cultivating a broad interest in his surroundings. Animals as Favorite Characters Animals – especially bears – make frequent turns in his stories as characters and protagonists. But Erlbruch looks past the traditional, facile, often clichéd metaphors that use animals as cute personifications of human traits. He notes: ‘Animals are actually not beautiful, they are phenomenal. They fascinate us through their earnest essence. I wish to retain this phenomenal element. Animals should not be “tamagotchi-ed.”’ A good example of Wolf Erlbruch’s ability to open up fresh, unexpected pictorial worlds is Der Bär, der nicht da war (2014, The Bear Who Wasn’t There and the Fabulous Forest), with text by Oren Lavie. The bear, a favorite character, reappears here in bolder and more stylized form, but Erlbruch’s use of colour and in particular his rendering of the forest feels overwhelmingly new. Surely no picture book ever gave us a forest like this: so much forest, so rich in color and form, so green and fragrant.