Werth, Kurt

Kurt Werth was born September 21, 1896 in Leipzig, Germany. He studied at the Academy for Graphic Arts in Leipzig and later worked as a book and magazine illustrator in Germany. With the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, Kurt Werth left Germany and came to the United States where he did magazine and text book illustrations. He became a United States citizen in 1947 and that same year he illustrated his first book for children, Rosemary Sprague's Northward to Albion . During his long and prolific career, Kurt Werth illustrated dozens of books for children and young adults including folk and fairy tales, biographies, and many works of fiction. In 1965, he published his first illustrated retelling of a folk tale, The Valiant Tailor . Early in his career, Kurt Werth had been influenced by "Rembrandt, Daumier, and Slevogt" but later "changed to a more expressive and modern approach." Kurt Werth died on August 25, 1983 in New York City.

Biographical Source: Something About the Author, vol. 20, pp. 213-215.

From the guide to the Kurt Werth Papers, 1953-1974, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])

Kurt Werth, a leading illustrator of books for children, was born September 21, 1896 in Leipzig, Germany. His parents, Rudolph Werth, a salesman, and Emma Helbig, did not encourage their son's artistic inclinations. However, he entered the State Academy for the Graphic Arts in Leipzig in 1913 and studied there for two years before being drafted into the army. When not in action, he filled sketchbooks with scenes of the life around him, and illustrated a copy of Rilke's The Cornet Rilke. All of these sketchbooks have been lost.

After the war he returned for two more years of study at the State Academy, leaving in 1921 for Munich where he began illustrating limited edition books which included Shakespeare's Trolius and Cressida, and books by Euripides, Puschkin, Kipling, and the German authors Wasserman and Kleist.

In 1924, Werth began drawing satirical cartoons for the Munich magazine, The Jugend, and the Swiss magazine, Nebelspalter. Four years later he and his wife Margaret, an actress, moved to Berlin where she became part of the City Theater. Werth heightened his activity here as a creator of satirical cartoons with his work for the Berliner Tageblatt, and the magazines Querschnitt and Simplicissimus, among others.

With Hitler's increasing power, the magazines folded, and Margaret Werth, who was Jewish, was not allowed to work. In the 1939 the Werths immigrated to the United States where Werth found employment illustrating a Sunday column in the New York Times magazine .

When the United States became involved in World War II, Werth began drawing cartoons for a number of the new magazines that had appeared on the political scene: Common Sense, Free World, The New Republic, Tomorrow, as well as Harper's .

The bulk of these publications disappeared with the war's conclusion, so Werth returned to book publishing, illustrating textbooks for Oxford University Press and other publishing houses. One of his first attempts at illustrating a picture book for children, Rosalys Hall's The Merry Miller, received much favorable notice and opened the door to requests from other authors and publishers.

Werth states, "As a German I was certainly influenced by the tradition of exact and thorough training in drawing. This goes back to Durer and even farther." He attempts to illustrate children's books in a "modern style." "Books have to be illustrated in our times. They should show the style of our times. Not all of them do it."

Kurt Werth died in New York City on August 25, 1983.

From the guide to the Kurt Werth papers, 1896-1983, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)