Hans Fischerkoesen

Hans Fischerkoesen, also known as Hans Fischerksen or Hans Fischer, was a German commercial animator. Fischerkoesen is considered an animation pioneer, due to the inventions and innovations he applied to animation technology, especially the use of threedimensional elements in his animations. Later he becomes Germanys most influential cartoonist, often nicknamed Germanys Walt Disney. He won both first and second prizes at a Dutchsponsored international competition in 1937, for advertising films . By 1956 he had won major prizes at commercial film festivals in Rome, Milan , Venice, Monte Carlo and Cannes. Most notable was the participation in the 1st Berlin International Film Festival, where Fischerkoesens film Blick ins Paradies won the Bronze Medal award.

Hans Fischer was born onMay 1896 in the small town of Bad Ksen, near Naumburg, at the River Saale in the German state of Saxony. Because the name Fischer was a very common name in the film industry, he later created the alias of Fischerkoesen, by combining his name Fischer and his birthplace Ksen, in order to distinguish himself from others. His father was a middleclass entrepreneur, dealing with building materials. He was a sensitive child, affected by asthma, which determined his parents to spoil both him and his sister Leni, by creating puppet shows and home entertainment, thus they developed a taste for fantasy and spectacle. Confined in bed most of his childhood by this bad case of asthma, he developed a great passion for drawing. Later, in 1916 he and his equally talented sister Leni, attended for three years the Academy of Graphic Arts, in Leipzig. Over the years, Leni was Fischerkoesens closest collaborator on many animation film projects.

Source: Wikipedia