Gertrude Degenhardt | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Gertrude Degenhardt,c. 1990 | |
| Born | Gertrude Schwell (1940-10-01)1 October 1940 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | 12 November 2025(2025-11-12) (aged 85) Greifswald, Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, Germany |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Awards | Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate |
| Website | www |
Gertrude Degenhardt (1 October 1940 – 12 November 2025) was a German artist, especially alithographer and illustrator. She illustrated the texts and albums ofFranz Josef Degenhardt and other political writers and singers includingFrançois Villon,Liam O'Flaherty,Bertolt Brecht, andWolf Biermann, often with a sense of absurdity and grotesque. In the 1990s, she turned to topics around women, portraying them in the art booksWomen in Music,Vagabondage in Blue, andVagabondage en Rouge.
Gertrude Schwell was born in New York City[1] on 1 October 1940[2] to German parents[3] and grew up in Berlin[2][4] from age two.[3] Her childhood was marked by the Nazi regime, bombings, and the difficult time after World War II.[3] Her family moved toMainz in 1956, where she finished her schooling. She studied at the Staatliche Werkkunstschule für Gebrauchsgrafik, a school forapplied graphics, until 1959, and then worked for advertising agencies inFrankfurt andDüsseldorf.[3]
She metFranz Josef Degenhardt, his brother Martin, and their circle of friends, including other singer-songwriters (Liedermacher)Dieter Süverkrüp [de],Hannes Wader, andHein and Oss Kröher.[3][5]
From the mid-1960s, Degenhardt worked as a freelance artist.[6] She designed covers for Franz Josef Degenhardt's albums, includingSpiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern.[3] Illustrations toFrançois Villon'sDas Große Testament received the "Schönstes Buch" (most beautiful book) award from the Stiftung Buchkunst in 1970.[3] She also worked with the acclaimed American expatriate folk musicianHedy West, illustrating a collection of West's songs in 1968.[7] In 1977 she provided illustrations to the songbook of singers Hein & Oss,Das sind unsre Lieder, a collection of songs neglected under the Nazi regime.[2]
She lived in Mainz from 1956.[4] In 1964, she married Martin Degenhardt,[3] who died in 2002.[8] Their daughterAnnette Degenhardt [Wikidata] became a guitarist and composer.[5][6] Gertrude Degenhardt later also lived inGalway, Ireland.[4]
Degenhardt died inGreifswald on 12 November 2025, at the age of 85.[1][4]
In her works, Degenhardt appears as a keen observer of persons and their characteristics, rendered with a sense of absurdity and the grotesque. Among her topics are enjoyment of life, hate, desire, admiration, bliss, disdain, greed, and suffering. Music and wine are frequent features of her work; she also portrayed theGonsbach valley, revolution (Republic of Mainz),vagabonds, dance, musicians, tramps, Ireland (Farewell to Connaught), and, repeatedly, her husband Martin Degenhardt.[3] She portrayedJohn Lennon in an etchingGive Peace a Chance. Some sequences, such asFiddle & Pint, were first exhibited in Dublin.
In the 1990s, she turned to women's topics such asVagabondage, cycles of wild and unique women, in books such asWomen in Music,Vagabondage in Blue, andVagabondage en Rouge, with women making music in protest of political failures and social injustice.[3]Vagabondage Ad Mortem is adanse macabre of 1995.[3] Degenhardt illustrated many texts and books, such asLiam O'Flaherty'sDer Stromer,[9] and works byBrecht,Biermann, her brother-in-law Franz Josef Degenhardt,[10] and other political authors, as well as record covers forIrish folk music and singer-songwriters.[3]
Exhibitions included:[12]
Degenhardt is listed as one of the 100 most influential women inRhineland-Palatinate.[14]
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