“If all frog had teeth”
Goethe’s legacy in picture books

Although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe claimed that he had never written anything for children, some of his works are published again and again in children’s books, and not only in recent years. Since the 19th century, Goethe’s poems have been appearing in poetry anthologies. His version of “Reineke Fuchs” was illustrated for children by Ludwig Richter and Wilhelm von Kaulbach: Janosch, Dieter Wiesmüller, and many others have since visually interpreted it. In our exhibition, there is a selection of picture books from the past six decades with Goethe’s lyric texts. Particularly noteworthy is the “Zauberlehrling” (sorcerer’s apprentice). Other books and pictures represent a variety of artistic possibilities and creative interpretations by artists such as Richard Seewald, Tomi Ungerer, Ebgert Herfurth, Wolf Erlbruch, and Peter Schössow, and invite children, parents, and teachers to discover the known as well as the less-well-known of Goethe’s poems.