Janosch II

The sad story of Valek by Janosch published in 1960. It is the tale of a horse who travels through the country with his violinist master Jarosch. When Jarosch plays the violin Valek has to cry to show how beautiful the violin sounds. However Jarosch does not respect the friendship of his faithful horse, he gets him to perform endlessly and work hard and then in the ultimate betrayal Jarosch paints the horse in black and sells it to a soldier.

Janosch I

Janosch's style is reminiscent of some of the work of John Burningham (1936), Max Velthuijs (1923–2005) David McKee (1935). A style of the late sixties and early seventies, with bold pattern and often garish, strong colour juxtaposition. Bollerbam was published in 1968.

Janosch (Horst Eckert) was born in Hindenburg in 1931. He worked initially in a textile factory before attending art college in Munich and then becoming a freelance artist. He has created over a hundred books for children many in an almost comic strip style, but I love these richer, bolder illustrations from his earlier books.