Interviewed by
Kathleen Hildebrand
Figures with ball heads, teeth bared, mouths gaping. Jumping jacks and fat aunts whose covers are burning, but don’t worry: the soldier firefighters are already coming, “Hooray, hooray, the fire brigade is here!”. Cuteness was never his thing, not even in the 37 children’s books illustrated by Hans Ticha. The figures in the paintings, graphics and children’s book illustrations by the artist, who was born in 1940, often consist of geometric shapes and have something mechanical about them. Even when they’re not waving flags and fists or squatting in rows of parliamentary seats, they’re subversive, parodies of the yes-men in East Germany’s socialist regime. Ticha was part of the artist scene in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, was monitored by the Stasi, and hid political paintings in a backyard apartment. He earned his money with commercial art and book illustrations. He is particularly famous for his set design for the Czech satirical novel “The War with the Newts” by Karel Čapek. Ticha has just been awarded the German Youth Literature Prize for his complete works at the Frankfurt Book Fair.