Arno Stern
1924–2024 · pedagogue and researcher on children's spontaneous image-making
Arno Stern (Kassel, 1924 – 2024) was a German-born French pedagogue and researcher best known for his study of spontaneous drawings and paintings made by children. Born in Kassel, he moved with his family to France after Hitler came to power. When World War II broke out, the family fled to Switzerland, where Stern spent his youth interned with some three hundred other refugees in a makeshift factory building. He drew whenever he had free time, and after the war he returned to France and became a French citizen. His work, centred on the idea of a painting place where children paint without adult intervention, appears in books such as Der Malort and Das Malspiel und das Leben. In 2019 UNESCO and Paris-Sorbonne University honoured him. He died in 2024, a week after turning one hundred. His son André Stern is also known for writing about education without schooling.