Caricatures Of German Soldiers By Henri Zislin

Henri Louis Constantin Zislin: Four lithographs from the series "The German Army," published in 1915. They depict: - The Soldier, the Lieutenant, the Major, and Admiral von Tirpitz. Postcards of these caricatures were produced. These lithographs each bear an additional signature by the artist, and even, for the Lieutenant, a dedication on paper, pasted at the bottom of the lithograph. In the lower left corner of the "Admiral," the phrase in his handwriting reads, "Birthday July 1917." Henri Zislin was born on June 16, 1875, in Mulhouse, then part of Germany. He died on May 5, 1958, in Paris, 11th arrondissement. He was a journalist and political cartoonist. His entire body of work is imbued with unwavering Alsatian patriotism. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Son of Constantin Zislin, born in Sausheim, and his wife Louise, née Würth, he was a classmate of Albert Schweitzer. He developed his talents at the drawing school of the Mulhouse Industrial Society, where he studied industrial drawing before working in his father's industrial design studio. From 1903, he began his political caricatures in the magazine D'r Klapperstei, which was published until 1905. A self-taught artist, he acquired the necessary skills on his own. In 1905, he published the pamphlet Das Elsass als Bundesstaat (Alsace as a Federal State), in which he called for autonomy for his native region. The pamphlet was banned, and Zislin was sentenced to his first prison term, which he then served continuously. In France, he was celebrated as a hero for his commitment to freedom of the press and to the idea of a French Alsace. From 1907 to 1914, he published a twelve-page magazine entitled Dur's Elsass: Humoristisch-satirisch Wucheblättle (Through Alsace). Each of the 190 issues contained ten to twelve drawings. This work led to his imprisonment six times. Three hundred of the caricatures published in the magazine were reprinted in Sourires d'Alsace (Smiles of Alsace), a book he published in Paris at "Marches de l'Est" (n.d.), with a preface by Paul Déroulède (dated 1913). During the First World War, he worked on the French army's war reports printed for the Alsatian population. Of the 194 editions, he created 156 cover pages—mostly watercolors. During the conflict, he also illustrated numerous humorous postcards. After the war, he drew caricatures against the Alsatian autonomist movement. In Alsace, now French, he felt that the struggle for autonomy he had supported under German rule was no longer relevant. His drawings used the common stereotypes of his time; they depicted poorly dressed Germans with beards and gold-rimmed glasses, and it was always they who died; never the French, always elegantly dressed. He was close to Hansi, who was two years his senior. His style has been compared to that of Caran d'Ache. A street in Mulhouse is named after him. (Source: Wikipedia)