Who Was Otto Kubel?

Proper education is a cornerstone of artistic creation. Otto Kubel was born in Dresden in 1868. In those times, Dresden was one of the top destinations if somebody wanted to study art (maybe even the best place to become a painter), and he used that fact to his advantage. But things didn't always go smoothly, so he worked for some time as an apprentice at a carpenter's workshop before he continued and finished his studies at The School of Applied Arts. Right after his diploma, he moved to Leipzig, where he worked as a commercial artist before he continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

Most artists become painters at first and only later illustrators. With Otto, it was quite the opposite. Making illustrations was faster and more profitable for his situation, so he entered the Academy as an already experienced illustrator.

In Munich, he worked with several great professors, but his participation in the vibrant community called the Munich School was probably even more important. This group of young talented painters was at the turn of the century probably the most active among artists who made a shift from Romanticism to Naturalism. Otto Kubel was an influential member who later also helped to establish the artist colony at Furstenfeldbruck, about 40 kilometers from Munich, where he later moved and worked for many years.

Oil paintings are not among the best-known works by Otto Kubel today, but they earned him a solid income. He created landscapes and portraits, where he excelled by his loose brushstrokes.

Otto Kubel's postcards are very likely his greatest legacy. They were initially made as watercolor illustrations, and many of them were originally published as parts of picture books. But the postcards were even better-accepted thanks to the Uvachrome technique (dye was transferred to paper with the help of gelatine), which was expensive and time-consuming, yet with superb results and very popular among people. Many of them are today considered collector's items.

The first Kubel's picture postcards were landscapes, but soon illustrations from the fairy tales by the Grimm Brothers came on the market, and the rest is history.

famous scene from Cinderella, number five in a set of six postcards

Otto Kubel illustrated numerous books by German and American authors. He worked on several projects where he is written just as one of the contributors, and he is also not always credited. This makes a compilation of his bibliography next to impossible. We can be sure he worked on dozens of books and magazines, but his take on classic fairy tales like Goose Girl, Wolf and Seven Kids, or Hansel and Gretel will always stay above all other creations.

Board games were very popular in the time between both world wars. They were considered an effective and fun way to expand the education of people, especially children. Manufacturers quite often employed top artists for illustrations and designs of their products.

Otto Kubel was no exception. Here we can see a lotto game combined with a puzzle based on the popular scenes from the classic fairy tales. Such a game was in many cases the first opportunity for children to learn the numbers.

We have already mentioned he was a painter, illustrator, and designer. He made portraits and landscapes, full-color pictures, and vignettes. He was skilled in aquarelles and oils. Otto Kubel was also skilled with charcoal, pencil, and even paper cuts (scherenschnitte).

Like many other artists, he learned to present the same scene in several different ways to achieve maximum financial impact. As an illustrator, he could illustrate the same story with new material (and earn new money), and as a painter, he could paint the same landscape with slightly varying views or light to expand the basin of possible buyers while saving on time and travel expenses.

To earn an extra income, he even drew maps!

Otto Kubel was a family man. He used his first serious inflow of money to buy a house in Furstenfeldbruck. He moved there with his long-time love Laura, who was at the time in 1902 already his wife. They had three daughters together. The house was not big enough for Otto's studio, so he set it up a few buildings away. He shared it with his good friend Eugen von Ruckteschell.

Otto was pretty good at creating, maintaining, and expanding friendships and collaborations. He knew that every friend meant a connection, connections meant business, and business brought food to the table of his family.

During his studies in Munich, Kubel was very active in different communities. His movement to Furstenfeldbruck didn't stop him from keeping in touch with other artists. In fact, Furstenfeldbruck soon became a seat of another small but vital artists' colony.

Drawing and painting were never enough for Otto, who was an agile member of his new hometown. He didn't just help at setting first exhibitions in the town but sang in a men's local choir, as well. For good measure, he served as an assistant judge in the district court.

These activities brought him numerous commissions for portraits of wealthy people.

Although Otto Kubel moved to Munich in 1922, he stayed closely connected to Furstenfeldbruck, where a street was named after him when he died. This decision was later questioned due to his well-known support of NSDAP. Anyway, the city council decided that his role in the leading German party was not so important to change the name of the street, so it stayed, just like his beautiful pictures.

Creditcs and more:

https://otto-kubel.mystrikingly.com/
https://just4fairytales.blogspot.com/2024/06/otto-kubel.html
https://dribbble.com/shots/24251879-A-Composite-Image-for-a-Project-about-Vintage-Board-Games

famous scene from Goose Girl, used for picture books and postcards