Fedor Flinzer
1832–1911 · German painter and illustrator of children's books
Fedor Alexis Flinzer (Reichenbach, Saxony, 1832 – Leipzig, 1911) was a German painter, draughtsman and art educator, best known as one of the leading illustrators of the Gründerzeit. He was nicknamed the Raphael of Cats, reflecting his fondness for these animals, which appear often in his work.
He spent ten years at the Dresden Academy, where his teachers included Adrian Ludwig Richter and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. His style, rooted in Biedermeier and Romanticism, later moved toward Historicism and shows hints of Art Nouveau. He produced oil paintings, frescoes and drawings, among them frescoes for the courtyard of the Weaving School in Chemnitz and a large frieze. His specialty was the animal world, depicted in a humanized and satirical manner.
From 1859 he taught drawing in Chemnitz, where he co-founded the Kunsthütte art association. Later, in Leipzig, he worked as municipal inspector of art education, and his textbook Lehrbuch des Zeichenunterrichts (1876) brought him recognition in Europe and America. His best-known illustrated book is König Nobel (1886), a continuation of Reineke Fuchs written with Julius Lohmeyer.
His influence as an educator waned after disputes with leaders of the art education movement. As an illustrator he is still remembered, and later artists have reused some of his images.