Exhibition “Sempre allegri, Bambini!”

Lothar Meggendorfer and the Movable Book in Italy between the 19th and the 20th century

A Brilliant Artist of the Movable Book

A genius recognized above all for the originality and complexity of his movable books, during his lifetime Lothar Meggendorfer (Munich, 1847-1925) created over 160 books, more than 77 games, and numerous illustrations for magazines, advertisements and postcards. He enjoyed great success from the outset: as early as 1902 more than one million copies of his books were distributed and translated into ten languages.

His career as an illustrator began in the late 1860s as a caricaturist for the magazines «Fliegende Blätter» and «Münchener Bilderbogen», where he developed the sense of humour and the incisive line that would characterise his style.
His production for children began in 1878 with a large-format, colour picture book designed for object teaching, Für die ganz Kleinen (For the Very Little Ones), followed in 1879 by Gute Bekannte (Old Friends).

His first movable book, Lebende Bilder (Living Pictures), was created for Christmas 1878 as a gift for his children: a handcrafted book with human and animal figures set in motion by ingenious pull-tab mechanisms, published the following year to immediate success. His 27 pull-tab books are characterised by elaborate mechanisms, still not easy to reproduce today, capable of setting in motion up to six different parts of an illustration, even in delayed sequence. These technical devices are never an end in themselves, but always serve to “bring the characters to life”.
Alongside these “mechanical” books, he developed, with great creativity and versatility, transformation books, books with rotating wheels, and spectacular works of striking three-dimensionality, such as the famous Internationaler Circus (1887), with its nearly 450 characters, each drawn individually. Throughout his work, the theme of music emerges strongly; Meggendorfer himself was a zither player.

The artist’s success and his rediscovery in recent decades – in addition to the numerous reprints that appeared between 1970 and 1980 – are also documented by the biennial prize named after him since 1998 by the American Movable Book Society.