German puppet designer, builder, teacher, and author. While studying art in Darmstadt and Karlsruhe (1947-1963), Hansjürgen Fettig worked as an art teacher, sharing his knowledge about puppetry and puppet construction on group projects for puppet theatre in schools and as a director of amateur ensembles. Through meticulous workshop curriculum development, he refined his skills for teaching and explaining puppet construction.

Fettig combined technical inventions, for example, joint connections for rod puppets and tabletop puppets, as well as techniques for creating expressive puppet heads built from basic forms and combined with everyday objects. He made his knowledge available to professional puppet theatres and puppetry amateurs through building commissioned puppets, presentations, puppetry master classes, journal articles, and books on puppetry and puppet construction.

While still living, Hansjürgen Fettig bequeathed a large part of his oeuvre to the Sammlung Rother (Rother Collection) in Eitorf, North Rhine-Westphalia and the PuK Museum für PuppentheaterKultur (Museum for Puppet Theatre Culture) in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate.

(See Germany.)

Bibliography

  • Fettig, Hansjürgen. Figuren Theater Praxis [Puppet Theatre Practice]. Frankfurt,[Wilfried Nold Verlag], 1996.
  • Fettig, Hansjürgen. Rod Puppets and Table-Top-Puppets. Oxfordshire: Southgate Publishers, 1997; Bicester: DaSilva Puppet Books, 1997.
  • Fettig, Hansjürgen. Glove and Rod Puppets. A Handbook of Design and Technique. London: Harrap Publishers, 1973; Waukesha (Wisconsin): Kalmbach Publishing Company, Books Division, 1974. (Also: Hand and Rod Puppets: A Handbook of Technique. Boston: Plays, Inc., 1974.)
  • “Hansjürgen Fettig – German Puppet Master”. [Interview with Hansjürgen Fettig by Gary Friedman.] May 24, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfLuBxuJpw. Accessed 7 June, 2013.