Fritz Eichenberg (1901–1990) was a German-American artist, printmaker, and book illustrator, recognized as one of the leading masters of 20th-century wood engraving. He was born in Cologne into a Jewish family and studied at the Cologne Municipal School of Applied Arts, later continuing at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig.
In 1923, Eichenberg moved to Berlin, where he worked as an illustrator for books and periodicals, including the satirical magazine UHU. Following the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, he emigrated to the United States and settled in New York. There, he taught at The New School and Pratt Institute and later headed the art department at the University of Rhode Island. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1947 and became a full Academician in 1949.
Eichenberg was a prolific illustrator, producing works for authors such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Grimmelshausen, Jonathan Swift, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. His illustrations often carried social, religious, or moral themes, and he also contributed to children’s literature and folklore collections.
He maintained strong connections with the Catholic Worker movement and other charitable initiatives and was associated with the journal The Nation, which published his illustrations from the 1930s through the 1980s. Fritz Eichenberg passed away on November 30, 1990, in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, due to complications related to Parkinson’s disease.
Amazon | Fritz Eichenberg
When Fritz Eichenberg (1901–1990) was commissioned to illustrate Jane Eyre for Random House in 1943, he had never read the novel or been to Britain. Working from New York during World War II, he approached Charlotte Brontë’s story through Jane’s own sharp and honest perspective. Eichenberg, a German-born artist who […]
