Background

Michael Sowa was born in Berlin, Germany on June 1, 1945.

Education

Sowa studied at the Berlin State School of Fine Arts for seven years.

Career

He worked briefly as an art teacher before focusing entirely on his career as a painter and illustrator.

A book of 50 paintings titled Sowa's Ark : An Enchanted Bestiary was published in 1996. He also illustrated Esterhazy, The Rabbit Prince by Irene Dische and Hans M. Enzensberger. He is the illustrator of The Little King December and A Bear Called Sunday, both authored by Axel Hacke.

He was the cover artist for several albums, including Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty and two covers for The Beautiful South's Miaow and for their single "Everybody's Talkin'."

He gained new followers for his work on the 2001 film Amélie where his art on the walls comes to life. Sowa contributes illustrations to the satirical German magazine, Titanic, and he also did the art work for magazine covers of several well-known periodicals, most notably the December 2, 2002 issue of The New Yorker.

His art is widely available as posters, notecards, postcards, and calendars.

Achievements

• He is a prominent painter and illustrator. Sowa is a master of the subtle and funny art, skilful old-brilliantly explained, besides, is composed surreally cryptic, and is thought through till the smallest detail.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • The Outing (detail)

  • Carpathian Chicken

  • A Turkey Provides Seven Kinds of Meat

  • X-masis Coming

  • Woman with Moth

  • Ark (detail)

  • The Broken Paw

  • Haunted City

  • Rabbit on a Train (detail)

  • Biker

  • Giraffe

  • Sailor's Lot (detail)

  • Pink Flamingos

  • Shop window rabbit

  • Highway Pig

  • Herbert

  • Happy Easter

  • The Bear

  • Untitled

  • The Passage

  • The Great Spring Tide of 1858

  • Friends

  • School of Fish

  • Rabbit on a Train (detail)

  • We Want No Pigs in Dodensted (detail)

  • Ark (detail)

  • The Nibelungs. There goes another Legend

  • Sharks of Suburbia

  • Rabbit In Front Of The Mirror

  • Man, Table, Fish

  • Quiet Days

  • Midsummer Night

  • Ark

  • Instant Relief Therapy

  • Their Master's Voice

  • Greetings From Berlin

  • Portrait of a Singer

  • February

  • Satellites of Pig

  • On The Road

  • Moving House

  • Sheepwith Lap Tops

  • The Outing (detail)

  • We Want No Pigs in Dodensted (detail)

  • Ark (detail)

  • The Last Hours of Pompei

  • The Rooster Goes on a Trip

  • A Summer Night's Melancholy

  • Big Buzzer

  • The Visit

• Other Work

  • Homepage of Michael Sowa - artist, cartoonist and writer