Artist of the month; Heinrich Kley

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Heinrich Kley was a German cartoonist of the Victorian period who began his career as an industrial illustrator, but developed over the years, producing humour and grotesque drawings for various publications, such as Jugend and Simplicissimus. I discovered his work when I lived in Rochester, forking out the largest sums of money I've ever paid for second hand books when I came across some first edition folio's of his work. Even though it was in pretty poor condition, I still paid £70 for the bigger of the two, simply bcause the drawings it contained were just so fantastic and at the time, I'd never heard of Kley nor seen any one produce such wonderfully evocative drawings which were so obviously of their time. Ever since, I've used Kley as a water mark of excellence for this kind of art.

Kley died in obscurity, they don't even know for sure which year he died in, though the best guess says some time during 1945. His legacy in German faded pretty quickly, but in the United States, his work had come to the attention of Walt Disney who used Kley as inspiration in some of the earlier Disney movies, most noticably the dancing hippos and crocodiles in 'Fantasia'.

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