Otto Ubbelohde
1867–1922 · German painter, printmaker and illustrator
Otto Ubbelohde (Marburg, 1867 – Goßfelden, 1922) was a German painter, printmaker and illustrator. Some of his works are associated with Art Nouveau. He is remembered for joining the landscape tradition of the Worpswede artists' colony with a body of graphic work that reached a wide public, above all his illustrations for the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales.
The son of a professor of Roman law, he studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts from 1884 to 1890, under teachers such as Gabriel von Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz. After visiting Worpswede in 1889 and returning there in 1894–1895, he settled with his wife Hanna at Goßfelden, near Marburg, where he built a studio and house that is now a museum. Alongside painting he practised applied arts, designing embroidery and screens. His main subjects were landscapes and still lifes, with some portraits; the landscapes of Hesse, especially around Marburg, are the most highly regarded part of his output.
His international reputation came with the 448 illustrations he made between 1906 and 1909 for an edition of the Grimms' fairy tales. After his death he was almost forgotten. A 1943 monograph tried to link him to National Socialist ideology, and it was not until 1984 that Bernd Küster produced a scholarly study that is now a standard reference. His legacy survives in the Otto Ubbelohde Foundation, in the prize named after him and in many streets and schools in Hesse.