Cornelsen, Hildegard

ILLUSTRATOR (GERMANY)
BORN 10 Oct 1905, Berlin - DIED 10 Dec 1981, Hamburg
BIRTH NAME Friedrichs, Hildegard
GRAVE LOCATION Berlin: Städtische Friedhof an der Schmargendorfer Kirche, Misdroyer Straße 50, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (Abt. 8-33)

Hildegard Cornelsen was the daughter of the architect Arthur Friedrichs. She was educated at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart where she studied textile design. In Paris she studied painting and to pay for her studies she made drawings for German fashion magazines.

In 1938 she married the enigineer Franz Cornelsen, who worked for Siemens in Berlin during the war. After the war her husband was one of the founders of the Minverva publishing. Together with Hildegard he started the Cornelsen Verlag für Schulbücher (Cornelsen Publishing House for School Books). In 1947 they adopted their nephew Dirk Cornelsen, whose parents had committed suicide in 1945.

In 1948 she published her first textbook "Peter Pim and Billy Ball" for learning English together with Kurt Spangenberg. It was a huge success and more Peter Pim books followed. Initially she only made illustrations for the books but later she contributed to the text as well. She died in 1981 in Berlin.

Images

The grave of Franz and Hildegard Cornelsen at the Friedhof an der Schmargendorfer Kirche, Berlin.
Picture by Androom (27 May 2015)

 

Sources
• Ernst, Helmut & Heinrich Stümbke, Wo sie ruhen..., Kleiner Führer zu den Grabstätten bekannter Berliner in West und Ost, Stapp Verlag, Berlin, 1986
Hildegard Cornelsen – Wikipedia


Cornet, Jacobus

Published: 24 Nov 2018
Last update: 11 Feb 2023