Another (drawn) cat

The art of Jürgen Wittdorf in Schloss Biesdorf

Two weeks ago, a friend sent me an article¹ about the current exhibition at Schloss Biesdorf featuring the works of Jürgen Wittdorf (1932–2018). The idea of homoerotic art in the GDR intrigued me, so we decided to visit. For me, it was a fascinating experience - a retrospective of Wittdorf’s work, and to my surprise, I recognized some of his illustrations. One room later, I found out why: he was the illustrator for the children’s book “Tiere im Zirkus” by Wladimir Durow², a book I still own, though I’d never known anything about the artist behind it.