Field Notes: Heinz Edelmann, Graphic Artist

I was originally going to write about Peter Max, who I thought had done the Beatle's Yellow Submarine art.  However, when I looked it up, I found that I was wrong -- a graphic artist named Heinz Edelmann had done it, and that I wasn't the only one who had made the Max assumption.  Many articles referred to the "Max-influenced" work that Edelmann did on Yellow Submarine, and the similarities are very easy to see:

Peter Max's "Border Crossing 3"
from http://rogallery.com/Max_peter/prints/1970/max-border_crossing-3.htm

Heinz Edelmann, still from 'Yellow Submarine'

Edelmann was born in 1934 in Czechoslovakia and upon graduating in the 1950s from the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf, he began work as a freelance designer, illustrator, animator and teacher.  He was known for combining Impressionist and Expressionist elements with humor and irony.  In the 1960s, he was experimenting with updated Art Nouveau styles when his work was spotted by Al Brodax, the producer of an animated Beatles cartoon series for children.  He was subsequently hired to produce the artwork for the Yellow Submarine film, which would become his hallmark.  

He continued to work in graphic arts up until April 2008, about a year before his death in 2009.  Some other examples of his work:

Book Cover for the German edition
of "Lord of the Rings"
from http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Heinz+Edelmann/page/2/1125260460

Movie Poster
http://8ate.blogspot.com/2009/07/rare-vintage-heinz-edelmann-1967.html