Kurt Heiligenstaedt (born August 13, 1890 in Roßleben; died May 5, 1964 in Berlin) was a German artist, poster designer, commercial artist, and caricaturist.
After working in the publishing book trade from 1907 to 1910, he studied at the private, Jewish art and applied arts school Reimann in Berlin with Professor Karl Klimsch.
Heiligenstaedt then worked as a commercial artist, poster artist and caricaturist. His works have been published in Funny Sheets, Meggendorfer Sheets, The Week, Sport in the Picture, Ulk, Fflying Sheets and simplicissimus.
He is characterized by humorous drawings with an elegant touch. He designed numerous advertising and film posters. His best-known work is the 1922 poster Persil remains Persil with the famous white Persil lady, for which Elly Heuss-Knapp wrote the advertising text. This poster was used only slightly modified for decades.
In 1923/1924 and regularly from 1935, Simplicissimus printed 428 of his drawings. From 1935 onwards, Heiligenstaedt specialized in erotic scenes in contemporary costumes that were as naturalistic as they were elegantly drawn. These were among the first pin-up pictures in Germany. In 1959, in the follow-up magazine to Simplicissimus, he ensured one of the rather rare confiscation actions at that time by indicating nipples on the cover.
Kurt Heiligenstaedt died in Berlin in 1964 at the age of 73 and was buried in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery. The tomb has not survived.
