Thomas Theodor Heine (28 February 1867–26 January
1948) was a German painter and illustrator. Born in Leipzig, Heine
established himself as a gifted caricaturist at an early age, which
led to him studying art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and,
briefly, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1896 he became
successful as an illustrator for the satirical Munich magazine
Simplicissimus, for which he appropriated the stylistic idiom of
Jugendstil and the graphic qualities of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
Aubrey Beardsley and Japanese woodcuts. The illustrated critiques of
social orders, and the monarchy in particular, that he made for the
magazine led to a six-month prison sentence in 1898. He also began
work as a book illustrator in the 1890s.
He fled Germany in 1933, first to
Prague. From 1938 until 1942 he lived in Oslo, and from 1942 until
his death in 1948 he lived in Stockholm. He published a
highly-cynical autobiography in 1942 Ich warte auf Wunder (English:
I Wait for Miracles).
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