Helmuth Ellgaard, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Helmuth Ellgaard

German illustrator, artist and journalist

Date of Birth: 03-Mar-1913

Place of Birth: Haderslev, Region of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Date of Death: 22-Apr-1980

Profession: artist, illustrator, journalist

Nationality: Germany

Zodiac Sign: Pisces


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About Helmuth Ellgaard

  • Helmuth Ellgaard (3 March 1913 in Hadersleben – 22 April 1980 in Kiel) was a German illustrator, artist and journalist. Helmuth Ellgaard was born in the then German Haderslev/Hadersleben (now in Nordslesvig, Denmark).
  • In 1928, the family left Haderslev, which became Danish after the Schleswig Plebiscites, for Kiel.
  • Soon, Ellgaard caught an interest in drawing and painting.
  • He was educated at the Art academy in Kiel in 1934, while simultaneously working as a news illustrator for the Kieler Neuste Nachrichten newspaper.
  • He also learned to sketch, and his specialty became fast sketches with charcoal. In 1938 he was newly wed and moved to Berlin.
  • After the outbreak of the second world war he became a war correspondent, and as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe he participated in many raids as a journalist, including the Battle of Britain in 1940.
  • His works were published in the renowned weekly magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung.
  • During the war this two sons were born; Peter (1940) and Holger (1943). The war had destroyed the large publishing houses in Berlin, and new newspapers and magazines were started in Hamburg and Munich among other places.
  • The Ellgaard family therefore moved to Munich, where Helmuth Ellgaard participated in starting the illustrated magazine Revue, which was one of the many new weekly magazines in post-war West Germany.
  • Ellgaard worked as an employee of the editorial staff as an image editor and news illustrator.
  • In almost every issue there were illustrations by him, from 1953 also in color.
  • His role models were the American Norman Rockwell and the Dane Kurt Ard. In 1956 he chose to become independent, and moved with the family to Hamburg.
  • There he illustrated books and worked for advertising agencies.
  • However, his important work during the period 1954 to 1961 was the illustration of a large number of film posters, of which the poster from 1959 for the anti-war film "The Bridge" (Die Brücke) is considered to be his most notable work.
  • He died of a heart attack in 1980, 67 years old. In 2003, his two sons Peter and Holger Ellgaard donated a large part of his works to the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn.

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