Franz Wacik

1883-1938 Austrian

Prolific Austrian illustrator of children's books

Franz Wacik was an Austrian painter and graphic artist. At the beginning of his artistic career, Franz Wacik was initially a student at the Strehblow School of Painting, later he studied with Alfred Roller at the Vienna School of Applied Arts. From 1902 to 1908 he studied painting at the Vienna Art Academy with Christian Griepenkerl, Franz Rumpler and Heinrich Lefler. In particular, Wacik devoted himself to book illustration, primarily in children's and young people's books. He illustrated mostly in color works by Hans Christian Andersen, fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm , stories by ETA Hoffmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Clemens Brentano, also the folk book by Till Eulenspiegel and many others.For the book series Austria's Hall of Fame , he took over the volumes on Franz Schubert and Franz Grillparzer, for the weekly magazine Die Muskete , he produced hundreds of color illustrations, including for the magazineHe contributed to the youth red cross. His work for the ambitious series Gerlach's Jugendbücherei stands out particularly, z. B. again with Andersen's fairy tales and illustrations about Bürgers Münchhausen.