Kredel, Fritz
Kredel, Fritz (1900–73),popular woodcutter and illustrator born in Michelstadt‐im‐Odenwald, Germany. He attended the Real Gymnasium, entered the military, was apprenticed to a pharmacist, and cared for horses in Pomerania before his family finally permitted him to enter art school. He studied under the master illustrator Rudolf Koch at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Offenbach‐am‐Main. Koch encouraged him to become a woodcutter, and the left‐handed Kredel taught himself to cut ‘on the plank’ by using discards from the neighbouring Klingspor Typefoundry. Their first collaboration was a compendium of liturgical and craft symbols called Das Zeichenbuch (A Book of Signs, 1923), for which Kredel cut Koch's illustrations. By the time they had finished the incomparable Das Blümenbuch (The Book of Flowers, 1930), Kredel was an acknowledged master at cutting smooth, delicate lines. A huge wall map of Germany,...
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