Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, April 17, 2021: Quint Buchholz, a German painter, illustrator and author (#1260)

Quint Buchholz (1957) is a German painter, illustrator and author. He is best known for his colorful, pointillist paintings that draw on techniques and motifs of magical realism, as well as his book illustrations and children's books for which he has won a number of awards.

Quint Buchholz grew up in Stuttgart, where he attended high school. He then studied Art History at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich from 1976 to 1977. From 1981 to 1986 he studied painting and graphic arts at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, under the direction of professor Gerd Winner.

Quint Buchholz started working as an illustrator for the magazines P.M. in 1979 and TransAtlantik in 1985, as well as for the popular German newspaper Die Zeit, which published fifteen reprints of his pictures in a literary supplement in 1988. Among the first books with covers and book illustrations by Buchholz, which were published in 1986/87, was a German translation of Jonathan D. Spence's The Question of Hu.

In 1991, author Gudrun Mebs and Quint Buchholz won a Gold Plaque at the Bratislava Children's Book Illustration Biennial (BIB’91). Buchholz's breakthrough came between 1995 and 1997, when he illustrated two international bestsellers: Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, and Nero Corleone by Elke Heidenreich. Nero Corleone was subsequently translated into 23 languages and received a number of awards,

The artist has created hundreds of paintings used for book covers, audio books, posters and advertisements, postcards, games, calendars and planners produced by a number of German publishing houses, as well as international publishing houses

Most of his paintings are painted in vivid colors, and the artist shows a preference for shades of blue as he frequently treats water, sky and night themes. In terms of technique, Buchholz's paintings cite the traditions of photorealism and pointillism, while his topics and themes are also inspired by magical realism. His art, in which he creates a distinctly dreamy atmosphere that has inspired imitations by other artists. The depicted elements, which can be read as elaborate and subtle symbolism, often tell stories with surprising messages revealing themselves only upon close scrutiny. Nevertheless,

The first major exhibition of Buchholz's work took place in 1989 at the Wilhelmspalais in Stuttgart. Since then, his works have been exhibited at a variety of locations.

Buchholz has published a number of books as both author and illustrator. In 1997, a group of international authors wrote stories about 46 of Buchholz's pictures, to be published in Buchholz's anthology BookPictureBook.

Buchholz has worked as a stage designer in productions of “The Golem“ (2005) and “Caligula“ (2007) at the Munich Metropole Theater.

Since 2008, Buchholz has been teaching painting and illustration at Irsee Monastery, as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolbermoor and the Bad Reichenhall Art Academy.

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