Rainer Willmann

This collection features 450 prints from Ernst Haeckel, the 19th-century artist-biologist who found beauty in even the most unlikely of creatures.

• Rainer Willmann (German).
• Co-author Julia Voss (German).
• Köln: Taschen, 2021.
• 704 pages.
• Hardcover.

The wondrous illustrations of 19th-century biologist Ernst Haeckel greatly popularized Charles Darwin’s controversial theory of evolution to a European audience. 

Born in Germany in 1834, Haeckel studied at the University of Berlin, where a professor took him on an expedition to observe small sea creatures, inspiring his interest in zoology and marine biology. Graduating with a medical degree, Haeckel traveled to Italy and began illustrating his microscopic findings of protozoans using bright watercolors and sketches, which he began publishing in 1860. Although he considered a career in art, Haeckel remained a professor of zoology at the University of Jena for 47 years. 

Haeckel discovered thousands of new species from his travels, describing and naming them. In 1864, he sent white-on-black illustrations of radiolarians to a deeply appreciative Charles Darwin, and his History of Creation (1876) helped visually translate Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. In 1904, Haeckel’s multi-volume Kunstformen Der Natur (Artforms in Nature) served as an encyclopedia with hundreds of detailed illustrations of living creatures that he found under the microscope. Haeckel’s artwork influenced the Art Nouveau movement, and his discoveries and philosophy helped shape the science and politics of the 20th century.