Wilfried Zeller-Zellenberg

Biography

Wilfried Zeller-Zellenberg was born in Vienna in 1910 as the son of an official of the k.u.k. State Railways in Vienna. Driven by a highly critical spirit, he rebelled against all forms of authority from an early age. Although he briefly attended the School of Arts and Crafts at his parents' request, he withdrew from his parents' advice by moving to Berlin in 1930. There he earned his living as a quick-draw artist at Bahnhof Zoo and as a caricaturist for political newspapers. He continued to use this talent after his return to Austria in 1933, where he worked for various media. During the Second World War, he took part in the Russian campaign as a dispatcher, driver and draughtsman. In 1943, a serious wound led to his discharge from military service. In 1945, he was forced to work as a portraitist for the Russian occupying forces in Vienna. From 1945, he lived as a freelance artist in Vienna, where he soon produced his first book illustrations (from 1949). In the 1950s, Zeller-Zellenberg traveled to Germany, Switzerland and Paris in 1955. The following decade brought great public recognition for the artist with several prizes and the appointment of “Professor”. During this time, he also worked as an illustrator for the daily newspaper “Express”, which was founded in 1958 by Fritz Molden and Gerd Bacher as an independent daily newspaper. As a rather left-liberal paper, the Express was Austria's third most widely circulated newspaper in the 1960s. Differences in content led to the decline of the newspaper from 1968 onwards, which was then merged with the Kronen Zeitung in 1971. In addition to his humorous drawings for the Express, executed with wonderfully light strokes, Wilfried Zeller-Zellenberg illustrated more than 400 books up until the 1980s. The artist died in Vienna in 1989 and was given an honorary grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery.