Marie Marcks

Marie Marcks (25 August 1922 – 7 December 2014) was a German graphic artist and cartoonist. She published numerous books, regular caricatures in widely circulated German publications as well as autobiographical graphic novels on everyday family life. A well-known artist since the post-war years in the Federal Republic of Germany, she is considered one of the most important caricaturists in Germany.

Marie Marcks
Born	25 August 1922 Berlin
Died	7 December 2014 (aged 92) Heidelberg
Known for	Socio-political caricatures
Style	Caricature, cartoons, graphic novel
Movement	Post-war caricatures in Germany
Website	http://www.marie-marcks.de/

Marcks grew up in Berlin. Her father was an architect and her mother a graphic designer who ran a private art school. Her uncle was the sculptor Gerhard Marcks. After attending secondary school at the reformist Birklehof boarding school in Hinterzarten (Black Forest) and training at her mother's art school, Marie Marcks studied architecture for a few semesters in Berlin and Stuttgart during the Second World War. After abandoning her studies, Marie Marcks worked as a freelance artist in Heidelberg.^[1]

In the 1940s and 1950s, she mainly created posters, and in 1958, she was commissioned to design the graphic design for Germany's contribution to Expo 58, the world exhibition in Brussels.^[2] She began publishing caricatures in the early 1960s. Her first works appeared in the magazine atomzeitalter, where she worked as a permanent cartoonist from 1963 to 1966. Over time, she expanded her drawings to include socio-political and feminist causes, with cartoons critical of the education system, nuclear power plants and the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, among other issues. This made her one of the most important caricaturists in the Federal Republic of Germany.^[3][4]

Marcks published and illustrated numerous books, regular caricatures in widely circulated publications such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stern, Spiegel, Titanic and Vorwärts, as well as autobiographical graphic novels on everyday family life. In 1984 and 1989, her graphic autobiography Marie, es brennt! and Schwarz-weiß und bunt was published in two volumes with a total of over 300 pages. For this, she turned some of her earlier works into new drawings.^[5]

Her images, drawn in black-and-white or with coloured pencils, are often telling a story with speech balloons or captions. Richness of detail and ironical word play are typical characteristics of her style. As a caricaturist, she was a contemporary of the much younger cartoonists Franziska Becker in Germany and Claire Bretécher in France. Marcks had five children whom she raised as a single mother.^[6] She continued her work until shortly before her death at the age of 92.^[1]

Marie Marcks' artistic estate was purchased in 2013 by the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover which organised a retrospective exhibition of the artist's work from May to October 2015.^[7] A two-volume edition of her work was published in 2022 to mark her 100th birthday.^[8] In Heidelberg, where she spent most of her life, the Marie-Marcks-School was named after her.^[9]

During her lifetime, Marcks was distinguished with several awards, including the German Order of Merit in 1995, the 2004 Caricature Prize of the German Bar Association and the German Caricature Prize in 2008. Her work was shown in numerous solo exhibitions in Germany, Austria, France, Australia, the USA and Canada.

• Marie, es brennt! Frauenbuchverlag Weismann Verlag, München 1984, ISBN 3-88897-108-X.
• Sternstunden der Menschheit – von Marie Marcks. Karikaturen der letzten 50 Jahre. Edition Braus im Wachter Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-926318-73-2.
• Hast du jetzt den Überblick? Verlag Antje Kunstmann, München 2002, ISBN 3-88897-316-3.
• Niemand welkt so schön wie du! Verlag Antje Kunstmann, München 2005, ISBN 3-88897-409-7.
• Meister der komischen Kunst: Marie Marcks. Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-88897-717-6.
• Nichts gegen Männer … Karikaturen und Zeichnungen von Marie Marcks. Catalogue for the exhibition at the Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hannover, 2015.
• Die große Marie Marcks. Zweibändige Werkausgabe. Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2022, ISBN 978-3-95614-520-9.

• 1980 Bonn, Kunstverein
• 1981 München, Kunstverein
• 1982 Heidelberg, Kunstverein
• 1983 Paris, Goethe-Institut Paris
• 1988 Salzburg, Museumspavillon
• 1989 Goethe-Institut Australia
• 1991 Bordeaux, Salon de Livre
• 1992 Munich, Gasteig; Goethe-Institut centres in the USA and Canada
• 1994 Dortmund, Museum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte
• 2000 Hamburg, Museum der Arbeit; Heidelberg, Kurpfälzisches Museum
• 2001 Old Town Hall, Halle (Saale)
• 2002 Göttingen, Altes Rathaus; Berlin, Willy-Brandt-Haus
• 2004 Berlin, Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer
• 2005 Tegernsee, Olaf-Gulbransson-Museum
• 2008 Wiesbaden, Frauenmuseum
• 2011 Luckau, Museum für Humor und Satire
• 2012 Caricatura Museum Frankfurt
• 2015 Hannover, Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
• 2023/24 Museum Kunsthaus Heylshof, Worms, Germany

• Thomas Werner (ed.): Sternstunden der Menschheit – von Marie Marcks. Karikaturen der letzten 50 Jahre. Anlässlich einer Ausstellung im Kurpfälzischen Museum der Stadt Heidelberg. Edition Braus im Wachter Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-926318-73-2, pp. 273–275.
• Michael Buselmeier (ed.): Erlebte Geschichte erzählt 1994–1997. Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-88423-175-8, pp. 221–235.
• W. P. Fahrenberg (ed.): Meister der komischen Kunst: Marie Marcks. Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-88897-717-6, pp. 105–110.
• Kotthoff, Helga (2000). "Gender and joking: On the complexities of women's image politics in humorous narratives". Journal of Pragmatics. 32 (1): 55–80. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00031-4. ISSN 0378-2166.
• Kesper-Biermann, Sylvia (2023-04-24). "Between Sex Revolt and 'Relationship Stuff': Gender Relatons in Comics of the 1968 Generation". In Lucenti, Maria (ed.). Women in Formal and Informal Education. Brill. pp. 112–132. ISBN 978-90-04-52569-6.

• Official website (in German)
• Examples of Marie Marcks' caricatures at Der Spiegel magazine (in German)