Konrad Ernst Theophil Kreidolf (9 February 1863 – 12 August 1956) was a Swiss artist and children’s book illustrator.
He was born in Bern, Switzerland, into a trader’s family. The family moved to Konstanz, Germany, where his father opened a toy shop. However, Ernst was largely raised by his grandparents in Tägerwilen, since he was expected to inherit their farm.
At the age of 14, he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer at the Lithographische Anstalt Schmidt-Pecht in Konstanz, while also taking drawing lessons. After completing his apprenticeship in 1882, Kreidolf continued working there as an assistant in order to support his family after the bankruptcy of his parents’ shop.
Seeking further education and artistic opportunities, he moved to Munich, one of the leading artistic centers in Europe at the time. From 1883 to 1885 he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule München, which gave him access to Munich’s rich cultural life and international art scene. In 1885, he also attended Paul Nauen’s private art school. On his second attempt in 1887, he was admitted to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, where he studied under Gabriel von Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz.
In 1897, at the Dresdner Kunst-Ausstellung, Kreidolf’s watercolors attracted the attention of several children’s book publishers, and soon his first book, Blumenmärchen (Flower Fairy Tales), was published, for which he made the lithographs himself. From 1898 onwards, he mainly illustrated children’s books, and in some cases also wrote the texts.
Website | kreidolf.ch
In 1897, the Gallery Arnold in Dresden exhibited several unusual watercolors with scenes from the life of flowers, created by a young and little-known Swiss artist, Ernst Kreidolf. The drawings caught the attention of several children’s book publishers, and a year later Kreidolf’s first illustrated story, “Flower Fairy Tale” (Blumenmärchen), […]
