Ingeborg Meyer-Rey

Ingeborg Meyer-Rey was born in Berlin. When she was 20 she embarked on a study of illustration and wall-art at the Berlin University of the Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1946 she obtained a job as a press artist for the Tägliche Rundschau, a hitherto defunct newspaper title that had been revived by the military administration which since May 1945 had been in control of a large central portion of Germany, including the eastern half of Berlin itself. One year later she took a job in the arts department, working as an illustrator, at the Soviet Arts Palace ("Haus der Kultur der UdSSR"), where she stayed till 1950.^[1] It was in 1950 that her son, Grischa Meyer, was born:^[3] his father, Grigorij Weiss, was a Soviet cultural administrator.^[4] It was during this period that she designed the early issues of the monthly Roman-Zeitung, a magazine designed to popularise Soviet literature. She also produced her first published illustrations for children's books, which marked a decisive step in her career. Meanwhile, the political situation in what had been the Soviet occupation zone moved forwards in October 1949 when the entire zone was relaunched as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic. In the early 1950s Meyer-Rey began working as a freelance illustrator, with connections to various publishing houses, of which probably the most significant was "Kinderbuchverlag Berlin".^[1] In 1957 she created "Bummi" the teddy bear, the main character in the eponymous monthly, later biweekly magazine for pre-school children.^[5] Bummi was at the heart of a long-running professional association with Ursula Werner-Böhnke who edited the magazine.^[6] As well as the book and magazine illustrations, Bummi also appeared on a silk stage curtain that she made for the Berlin Puppet Theatre.^[1]

Meyer-Rey was a member of the National Association of Visual Artists ("Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR"). Her illustrations applied a figurative-realistic approach, which was deeply influenced by Soviet artists of the time. An exceptionally prolific artist, she can be seen as one of the best known and most influential illustrator of children's books in the German Democratic Republic, where generations of children, especially during the early years of their school careers, used textbooks that incorporated her illustrations. Many of her books worked through a succession of editions and some are still (2017) in print. Her work also achieved success with publishers abroad, notably in Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Hungary, the United States of America, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, China and even West Germany, where editions were also published in Sorbian. "Der gute Held. Märchen der Völker der Sowjetunion" ("The Good Hero: Fairy Tales from the Soviet People"), illustrated by Ingeborg Meyer-Rey, was celebrated (by election) as one of the German Democratic Republic's Most Beautiful Books in 1952.