Bodo Zimmermann

Biography

Illustrations, book jackets, certificates. Born 29 May 1902 in Filehne, near Bromberg. Student for several years at the Royal Prussian Cadet School and volunteer (1918-21) during chaotic postwar years, including helping to suppress the Spartacist revolt in Berlin. From c1922: studied at Breslau Schule für Kunst und Handwerk, the Berlin Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule, the Berlin Akademie, the Munich Akademie (where one of his teachers was F.H. Ehmcke) and lastly at the Nuremberg Kunstschule and Akademie; later travelled in Near East, North Africa, Italy. From 1927: lived in Breslau; worked for various publishers including Hegel & Schade, Leipzig, and Korn, Breslau. 1932: his wood engravings shown in a group exhibition in Chicago. 1937: awarded City of Breslau Art Prize. 1938: awarded Art Prize of Silesia. Jan.-Sept. 1939: resumed studies at the Berlin Akademie.

From Sept. 1939: military service in Poland and France; he did drawings, woodcuts, especially of battles near Saint Quentin and Rouen. His later woodcuts were done in Greece, Russia, and Finland. 20 Jan. 1945: wife and son evacuated from Breslau. 7 May 1945: captured by the Red Army, taken to Stalingrad, eventually repatriated to a Soviet internment camp at Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, in poor health. He died in the camp on 25 August 1945, a day before he was due to be released. His widow and son emigrated to Canada c1947, and to the USA in 1952. ‘His son [attempted] unsuccessfully in 1968 to have the American authorities return the works seized [by the U.S. Army] in 1945.’ (MGD, 1992)

(Note, there was a well-known German Army Officer of the same name, author of books on military tactics, c1918.)

Writings about

  • Der Holzschnitt, July 1931 (cover, pp. 1-7)
  • Hermann Lindner, ‘Mainfränkischer Kunstverein: Bodo Zimmermann’, Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich, Nov. 1940, p. XII
  • Vollmer, 1961 (extensive list of German journals)
  • MGD, 1992.
  • ‘Christmas and New Year prints [cards]’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., Jan. 1936, pp. 31-42, esp. p. 36
  • Walter Hofmann, ‘The younger German generation of graphic arts’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1937, pp. 399-403
  • Hanna Rohde, ‘The artist and the family’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1938, pp. 11-18
  • Walter Hofmann, ‘The fine art picture postcard’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1938, pp. 399-402
  • Wolfgang Bruhn, ‘Deutsche Buchillustration und Buchschmuck der Gegenwart’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1939, pp. 529-96, esp. pp. 572, 573
  • Hans Bockwitz, ‘Junge deutsche Büchkunstler’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1934, pp. 699-784, esp. pp. 710, 722, 723, 782, 783, 784
  • Eberhard Hölscher, ‘Comments on German book illustration’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., 1937, pp. 1-20
  • Artur Grams, ‘Das Reichsvolksschullesebuch’, Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Leipzig: Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein., April 1938, see pp. 382, 383, 386 (cover also by BZ)

Exhibitions

  • Chicago, 1932
  • Deutsche Buchgewerbeverein, Leipzig, and Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1936
  • Haus der Deutschen Kunst, Munich, 1937
  • Kassel, 1938
  • Kunstverein, Würzburg, 1940
  • Frame Studio, Milwaukee, 1959.