1890 Prag
1951 Collingwood

The illustrator Walter Trier was born on June 25, 1890, in Prague, the son of a factory owner. As a youth, he attended the Nikolander secondary school. He then went to the applied arts school in Prague but changed over to the art academy in Munich in 1906, where he studied under Franz von Stuck. As early as 1909, his first drawings appeared in the satire magazine "Simplicissimus" and in "Jugend." In 1920, the Berlin publisher Otto Eysler employed him as a press illustrator for the "Lustige Blätter." Within 10 years, over one thousand color illustrations by Trier had been printed, and he became one of the most sought after drawers in Berlin, illustrating the title page and illustrations for the Ullstein-Magazines "UHU" and "Die Dame" for two decades. In 1925, he began working with the "Kabarett der Komiker" and was elected as a member of the "Berliner Secession." In 1929, Trier began working with the young Erich Kästner on the artwork for Kästner's first children's book "Emil und die Detektive." In the same year, Trier was elected as second chairman of the press illustrators. On January 30, 1933, Trier, who is of Jewish ancestry, had to leave Germany with his family. He settled in England in December 1936. The following year, he began doing the cover illustrations for the monthly magazine "Lilliput." He also illustrated political pamphlets and did his first anti-National Socialist caricatures during the war. Trier and his wife became British citizens in 1947 and then followed their daughter to Ontario, Canada. The first exhibition of his water colors and oil paintings was put on at the University of Toronto in 1951. Walter Trier died on July 8, 1951, in his studio in Collingwood.

Trier, Walter