Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman was born February 15, 1948, in Sweden. While in Poland, his father Vladek Spiegelman and mother Anja were detained in the Polish ghettos reserved for Jews, and later taken to concentration camps. They both survived, but not without sustaining permanent mental and emotional damage, which was the main reason Spiegelman started his most famous comic series: Maus, which discussed about the holocaust of Nazi. Spiegelman took refuge in the light-hearted world of comics as a young boy, which directly caused him to become a cartoonist at an early age.
In 1965, Spiegelman enrolled at Harpur College (now the State University of New York) in Binghamton, New York. While at Harpur, Spiegelman contributed comics to his college newspaper and published work in other magazines. The young artist shocked everyone around him by saying and doing whatever came to mind. At his age of 22 in a psychiatric hospital in upstate New York, he realized that it was a common behavior for a child of a holocaust survivor--imitating the parent's experience in the camps in an unconscious effort to understand the damaged individual's perspective.
In 1978, Spiegelman hoped "to tell his father's story, his own story, and a universal story of the Holocaust." He conducted an extensive series of interviews with his father to learn about the Holocaust experiences that his parents had endured. Sadly, Spiegelman's father died four years before the book Maus I: My Father Bleeds History was published, and never got to see the respect that his son's efforts had earned. In 1991, Maus: a Survivor’s Tale II: and Here My Troubles Began was released. It continued the story, touching on the horrors of living in concentration camps.
The 2004 Contemporary Authors Online stated that "Maus I and Maus II allow us as readers to go outside ourselves and to look objectively at ourselves and at otherwise unspeakable events." Although critics varied in their response to Maus's outlook, they whole-heartedly agreed that Spiegelman had managed to produce an innovative and stirring work of art.
Resources Citing
In 1965, Spiegelman enrolled at Harpur College (now the State University of New York) in Binghamton, New York. While at Harpur, Spiegelman contributed comics to his college newspaper and published work in other magazines. The young artist shocked everyone around him by saying and doing whatever came to mind. At his age of 22 in a psychiatric hospital in upstate New York, he realized that it was a common behavior for a child of a holocaust survivor--imitating the parent's experience in the camps in an unconscious effort to understand the damaged individual's perspective.
In 1978, Spiegelman hoped "to tell his father's story, his own story, and a universal story of the Holocaust." He conducted an extensive series of interviews with his father to learn about the Holocaust experiences that his parents had endured. Sadly, Spiegelman's father died four years before the book Maus I: My Father Bleeds History was published, and never got to see the respect that his son's efforts had earned. In 1991, Maus: a Survivor’s Tale II: and Here My Troubles Began was released. It continued the story, touching on the horrors of living in concentration camps.
The 2004 Contemporary Authors Online stated that "Maus I and Maus II allow us as readers to go outside ourselves and to look objectively at ourselves and at otherwise unspeakable events." Although critics varied in their response to Maus's outlook, they whole-heartedly agreed that Spiegelman had managed to produce an innovative and stirring work of art.
Resources Citing
"Art Spiegelman." Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Vol. 25. Thomson Gale, 2005. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
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