Michael Ende

Flying across Fantastica astride Falkor the luck dragon, meeting the Childlike Empress, sitting in the attic with Bastian, joining Momo as she escapes the Men in Grey, brewing a batch of “satanarchaeolidealcohellish notion potion,” or embarking on an adventure with Jim Button and Luke. These famous stories have moved and delighted readers across the globe for decades now. In them, fantasy and reality collide again and again. Ende’s literary cosmos of fantastic creatures and heroes has been translated into visual pictorial worlds by a wide array of illustrators and artists. The resulting variety of drawing styles, techniques, and imagery and the catalogue that accompanies the impressive exhibition at Schloss Oberhausen not only depicts Michael Ende’s extensive works, but also showcases several icons of illustration. Now, for the first time, these magnificent pictorial worlds can be explored in one comprehensive volume.