Died 21 September 2007 | ||
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Books Bony‑Legs, Buster loves buttons!, Esteban and the ghost, The great turtle drive, The Naked Bear: Folktales Similar Alvin Schwartz, Joanna Cole, Fran Manushkin, Eric Kimmel, Laura Godwin | ||
Dirk Zimmer (2 October 1943 – 26 September 2008), called Dizi, was a German artist, illustrator and writer of children's books. He is regarded as one of the most productive and sought-after illustrators.
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Biography
Zimmer was born in Goslar in Lower Saxony. He grew up mostly in Hamburg, where he attended the Hochschule für bildende Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) from 1963 to 1968.
The German period
In 1965, he was one cofounder of Cruizin 4', Syndikat für Kunstbetrieb (syndicate for art scene), together with his fellow artists Francesco Mariotti, Hermann Prigann, Werner Nöfer and Dieter Glasmacher. It is best known through two events: The spectacular opening of the exhibition Cruizin 4 in the Gallery Mensch at Fischmarkt Hamburg-Altona, where the members came with a stretched limousine with chauffeur. And by a performance at Cosinus, a legendary pub in the university district. The Happening 1. World Record in Permanent Painting took place under medical, and specifically psychiatric care, too, by doctors of the University Hospital Eppendorf. (The planned on about 80-hour performance was canceled after 36 hours on medical advice because of collapse of one of the participants). Under the logogram Dizi, Dirk Zimmer had a brief career as a painter during the German avant-garde movement and then turned to filmmaking, which he eventually dropped in the late 1970s to work afterwards as an illustrator for such American publications as Crawdaddy, the New York Times, and The New-York Magazine. Over the years, both his paintings and illustrations, were shown in private galleries in New York, Germany, Switzerland, and France.
The American period
His serious art and work as a children's book illustrator began after going definitely to New York City in 1977. He found a flat in John Street, high up right under the roof, for a lengthy period of time. The only media contact to his homeland was held with the German Boa Vista magazine, in which he first published vignettes, than later his written and illustrated (from 1977, New York) short-story comic with the cryptically and untranslatable German title Die mysteriöse Schratzmichlöse. From 1978 to 2004 Zimmer published more than two and a half dozen kid's books. Zimmer moved to Barrytown, NY in the early 1980s, and later lived in the Rondout area of Kingston. For the past 11 years, he was a contributor and collaborator at the northern Dutchess quarterly AboutTown. A few years ago, he moved to Tivoli, NY. In 1991, he was one of a small group of illustrators—including Natalie Babbitt, Maurice Sendak, Marc Simont and Barbara Cooney—whose work was featured in The Big Book for Peace (Dutton, 1990), an anthology of 34 artists and writers.
Car accident and death
In Tivoli, on a walk to the river on the afternoon of 21 September, Zimmer was struck by a car. He died on 26 September at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He is survived by two sisters who live in Germany. The sequel of the book Egon (published 1980), on which he had worked until the last time, remains unfinished now. Egon, Zimmer’s adventurous, furry alter ego, leaves the following note at the end of the book: "I am having a good time. I will be home some day but not until the show ends. Maybe soon."
In German
In English
Books by himself
Awards, Honours
Legacy
Zimmer's offbeat, sometimes grotesque, but always gentle humor made him one of the most sought-after illustrators for "scary" picture books, two of which were selected as American Library Association Notable Book lists for children's books. The Trick-Or-Treat Trap—the only book that he has written and illustrated by himself, got the most resonance and response in criticism. So the New York Times praised the humor of this work with the adjective "tongue-in-cheek": "His pen has bite as he pictures a wonderfully wicked assortment of ornery little beings."