Buchvorstellung
"EDUARD ZANDER: His Life and Work in Ethiopia 1847-1868"

Tue, 05.11.2019
5:30 AM Goethe-Institut Äthiopien

Eduard Zander’s works on paper survive in London, in the British Museum, and in the Archive in Dessau, in Anhalt Saxony, Germany. Born in Germany in 1813, he lived and worked in Ethiopia from 1847 to his death in 1868. What makes Zander’s oeuvre so special is the fact that he was a trained artist, painter and draughtsman who flourished as artist and confidant of the military leader dädjazmach Wəbe Haylä Maryam and, after his defeat, of Emperor Tewodros II. As resident in Ethiopia he looked at Ethiopia not as an exotic place, but as his home.


His artistic oeuvre, some of which is kept as photographic records in Mekelle University, provides a window into the way of life of people living in the majestic landscape of the Simiän Mountains in the North of Ethiopia in the middle of the 19th century. Zander’s family lives on, his great grandson was the well-known British film actor Peter Ustinov. For the first time the oeuvre catalogue of Zander’s artistic output has been published by Dr. D. McEwan in 2018.