Hugo Hercules & The Wild West (DE 2023)

The German-American artist W.H.D. Koerner was born in 1878 in Schleswig-Holstein and emigrated to the United States with his parents as a child. There, he developed in the year 1902, the world’s first superhero: Hugo Hercules. Koerner would become popular through his almost-2000 illustrations and oil paintings from “The Wild West” that were published on magazine-covers and in books. Until today, his depictions formed the global image of the pioneer years of the Americas and influenced innumerable Hollywood productions. However, the colonial perspective of Koerner’s illustrations on the indigenous population in the Americas was strongly criticised. Martina Fluck and Tim Eckhorst examines different stages in Koerner’s life and his passion for illustration.