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All images © Rudolf Kahl
Rudolf Kahl
War was raging over Europe and parts of the rest of the world, when I was born in a bombed-down neighborhood in Hamburg, Germany in early May, 1943. I grew up
partly in Hamburg and partly - with foster parents - in a boring place called Peine somewhere in the middle of Germany. In 1960 I went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for 6 months to live with my mother, who's second husband
had then recently died. I went back to Germany for an art study that never took place, but went to live with my half brother in Amsterdam, Holland instead. Living in my brother's home was no solution for me either and I
started to live on my own, when I was 19 years old. In Amsterdam I visited art school at last for 3 years, not finishing the course. I started to work in advertising agencies instead.Somewhere about 1975 I stopped
working in the advertising business and started as a book illustrator drawing historical stuff for youngsters. Because of my knowledge of old weapons I was contacted by the Dutch Military Collector's Service to write
and illustrate a series of books describing German military collector's items. I worked on that job for 5 years in poverty and stopped after the 4th book published. I then turned to comic strip and worked as an editor
for a publisher of controversial comic books, designing my own comic book at the same time. After 5 years of off and on work my book «Herinneringen» (Memories) was published in Holland and received the first price for
best album of the year. It was a very serious peace of work about my early years in post war Germany. My publisher went bankrupt after a clash between him and some major artists and I had to turn to advertising again
for the years to come. In 1994 I started to work as a visualizer for a designing company in my then hometown of Alkmaar, Holland. It was my first job, using the computer as a medium. We started with CorelDRAW # 5 and
turned to CorelXARA the second it was available. I worked with Xara since and enjoyed almost every minute of it. In 1999 I was offered a part time job as author of a continuous series of articles and tutorials on
computer drawing, mainly using CorelDRAW (because of tradition and fame) and CorelXARA / Xara X (because of it's usefulness). Besides those activities I also work occasionally for advertising agencies, publishers and
the famous Dutch jewelry designer Jos Paperkamp who won the World Diamond Award twice. |
