Helmut Arz

picture source

[Helmut Arz von Straußenburg]

Education: during his studies at the Evangelical Gymnasium in Sibiu he  took private lessons with Hans Hermann, one of the most important painters of German origin from Romania.          

The Institute of Fine Arts of Cluj-Napoca (1949-1955), Department of painting, professor Aurel Ciupe.

Begins to illustrate children's book  while in university, working with Tineretului Publishing House. Between 1955-1965 he published illustrations and caricatures in the Útunk and Napsugár magazines, and in 1961 became professor at the Art School in Sibiu. In 1965 he emigrated to Germany, becoming  dean of the University of Arts and Design in Essen, in 1985.

Helmut Arz genetic aristocracy was extended to his artistic talent too. His graphic has a finesse of lace, with characters painstakingly sketched in rough lines, open, lively, of a  compositional spontaneity that gives the impression that the drawing is absorbing the  text an not vice versa (usually the illustration is the one accompanying the text), opening the illusion of a visual tunnel that carries the reader through a written story with pictures.

Unfortunately for the Romanian book illustration, the work of Helmut Arz, extending over the  period of  a decade full of ideological impediments, limited his artistic expression, but its design was not altered by the social pathology of the time, keeping its freshness for the future generation of readers.

 

1953

Poveşti alese - Josef Haltrich - ilustrații de Helmut Arz și Kathrin Hienz (Tineretului Publishing House)

Sächsische Volksmärchen aus Siebenbürgen - Josef Haltrich - ilustrații de Helmut Arz și Kathrin Hienz. (Tineretului Publishing House; ediţia a II-a 1967)

1954

Poveşti alese – Fraţii Grimm (Tineretului Publishing House)

[cop. color & il. a/n + 8 planşe color]

Jóska -Asztalos István (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

1956

Cei trei muşchetari – Al. Dumas (Tineretului Publishing House)

1957

Märchenschau - Jessika Drimer-Sperber (Tineretului Publishing House)

1958

Roten Meer: Ein siebenbürgischer Kaufmannslehrling forscht in Afrika (La Marea Roșie: Un ucenic de negustor face explorări în Africa) -Otto Fritz Jickeli (Tineretului Publishing House)

Tibold Marton - Molter Karoly (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

Áthá-Rá- a fáraó irnoka - Dané Tibor (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

Miért kerek az alma - Asztalos István (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

1959

Vilaghires Gyorgy - Méhes György (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó; reeditare 2006, Ulpius-ház Könyvkiadó)

1960

Spărgătorul de nuci – E.T. A. Hoffman (Tineretului Publishing House)

[cop. color & il. sepia]

1963

Mackó Marci kalandjai - Sipos Bella (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

Aventurile lui Martinică - Sipos Bella (Tineretului Publishing House)

1964

Prinz Zeisig und andere Märchen - Lotte Berg (Tineretului Publishing House)

Brumbrums Abenteuer - Bella Sipos (Tineretului Publishing House)

[traducere din maghiară de Else Kornis]

1968

Inasok - Zimán József (Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó)

1976

Szikra Ferkó - Méhes György (Ion Creangă Könyvkiadó)

2004

Gyöngyharmat Palkó - Méhes György (Ulpius-ház Könyvkiadó)

2005

Szikra Ferkó - Méhes György (Ulpius-ház Könyvkiadó)