Fritz Kredel

Fritz Kredel (February 8, 1900- June 12, 1973) was a German graphic designer who was born in Michelstadt, but later emigrated to America. In his early years, he studied under Rudolf Koch at Offenbach School of Design, and developed skills in woodcuts. After Koch died in 1934, Kredel moved to Frankfurt, but in 1936 he fled Germany (for political reasons relating to his Jewish ancestry) with help from Melbert Cary.

After emigrating to the United States, he taught at Cooper Union in New York.

He produced illustrations for over 400 books. Many of his originals are now housed at the library at Yale University.

Illustrations

A sample of some of the things he illustrated includes:

*He illustrated Eleanor Roosevelt's children's book, "Christmas".
*He was commissioned to create a woodcut of the Presidential Seal for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.
*He illustrated several volumes for George Macy's limited edition club.
*He illustrated the "World's Best Fairy Tales", produced by the Reader's Digest in the late 1960's.
*He colored the John Tenniel illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass for the 1946 Random House editions of those works.
*He profusely illustrated the six volume set, "The Complete Andersen: All of the Stories of Hans Christian Andersen in Six Volumes" which was a limited edition of 1500 sets. He signed the sixth volume of each numbered set. The illustrations purportedly were hand-colored by stencil.