Friday 11 July 2008

Marie Hohneck, illustrator


Puss in Boots, 1905

At the turn of the 20th century, women illustrators, especially for children books, became more common. Be it Kate Greenaway, Rie Cramer, Anne Anderson, Marie Hohneck, Norbertine Breßlern-Roth, etc. more and more women found a job as illustrators.
The academic training still was problematic and not equal for female and male students, and in most cases illustrating alone couldn't provide the livelihood. But nonetheless there were woman artists that became as popular as their male colleagues. Marie Hohneck certainly was one of them. Today mostly forgotten, she trained under Wilhelm Claudius, lived in Dresden and worked between 1885 and 1915.
Her popularity is shown very clearly by a simple fact: the fairy tale picture books she illustrated by order of the Stuttgart publisher Weise in 1905 were published with the serial title: "Hohnecks Märchenbilderbuch". To include the artist's name in the title of the publication was a rare practice at the time. It meant, that the name of the artist was popular enough to promote the book and ensure its saleability.
Hohneck's fairy tale illustrations strike a balance between conventional and modern. The chosen scenes are for example very traditional, as is the way Hohneck orchestrates the different scenes. Whereas the influence of the "Jugendstil" is shown in the lineament of the drawings, or the costumes of the heroines.


Little Red Riding Hood, 1905


Sleeping Beauty, 1905


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1905.


Cinderella, 1905

Illustrations from:
Goldenes Märchenbuch. Eine Sammlung der Beliebtesten Märchen mit 96 farbigen Illustrationen von Maria Hohneck. Stuttgart: Weise, [1905].
Collective edition of twelfve picture-books to single fairy tales.

8 comments:

lotusgreen said...

wonderful post!!

mihgasper said...

Hi! Great post - do you know when Maria Hohneck lived (date of her death)? Thank you in advance!

Unknown said...

Hi, this lady was Adolf Hohnecks sister I think.
I would like to know more too.
She is a relation of mine through my mothers father who was Ernest Hohneck, son of Ernest who was Adolfs son and who came to New Zealand via California.

Really want to know more and have been looking........the force is strong in me. :-)

Unknown said...

love to hear more...and great article

Unknown said...

I checked with my family last night.
I grew up with stories about Tunta Mia.
She was my grandad Ernest Hohnecks aunty.
This was Marie Hohneck, sometimes called Maria.
She moved to New Zealand with her brother Adolf (son of the artist Adolf Hohneck)
They lived in the north of New Zealand at a place called Pakaraka. Adolf is buried there.
I will try and find out more about Marie Hohnecks where abouts.
An amazing coincidence, and I appreciate the article even more.
many thanks.

My mum was a Hohneck.

Graham Hughes

Maree said...

Hello Graham Hughes.

Maria Hohneck was also my mother in law’s Tante Mia. I have some photos and dates and an original illustration given to my mother in law by Maria.. You can contact me at puketotara@gmail.com if you want to know more.

Maree Jones

John Hughes said...

I am the brother of Graham Hughes and today I got out all my genealogy research material and found that I had a copy of the death certificate of Maria Elizabeth Hohneck that I got back in August 1995. I will add the information here.
Maria died on the 25th December (Christmas Day) 1949 at her niece, Martha Blumhardt's place, in Pakaraka. She had remained as a spinster all her life and was 83 when she died. She had been in New Zealand for 22 years so was 61 when she came to NZ in about 1927.

John Hughes said...

Forgot to mention that Maria is buried in the Pakaraka church cemetery.