Bettina Hürlimann (1909–1983)

Bettina Hürlimann was born in Weimar, Germany, the eldest daughter of Gustav Kiepenheuer and his wife Irmgard Funcke Kiepenheuer, who ran a publishing house. At the end of World War I, the family moved to Potsdam, where her parents divorced and lived separately on two houseboats. Bettina began painting at an early age and became passionate about art as well as about the publishing trade. After graduating from high school, she studied at the Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Industry and at the Bibliographical Institute in Leipzig. She served internships in typography in Bristol, England, and later in Berlin, where she became a trainee at the publishing house Atlantis Verlag in 1931. At about this time, she also began to publish her first articles. In 1933, she married Martin Hürlimann, a Swiss publishing director, with whom she had four children. Shortly before the start of World War II, the family moved to Switzerland. There Bettina worked as a publisher, concentrating on children's and picture books. She also wrote her own children's stories as well as nonfiction works on the literary history of children's and youth literature, such as Three Centuries of Children's Books (1959), which were published in numerous languages. She also worked for several newspapers, lectured around the world, and was a jury member for the Biennale of Illustrations in Bratislava. She also translated children's books and wrote an autobiography, Seven Houses: A Bookwife's Notes, published in 1976. At her death, she left an extensive children's book collection that is accessible at the Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media (SIKJM). Her daughter Regine Schindler became a noted author of books for children and young adults.