Where do little children come from? [Woher kommen die kleinen Kinder?] (2018)
The sex education book ›Woher kommen die kleinen Kinder?‹ was published in 1957 with a text by Ruth Andreas-Friedrich and illustrations by Jochen Bartsch. It was intended to answer questions about sexuality, procreation, father and mother, family responsibilities and prenuptial chastity. But instead of providing clarity, the book tended rather to romanticize the subject.
Herbert Stattler has now translated the obsessional imagery of the 1950s into an artist book with forty-two pencil drawings. The sheets are reproduced using the relief printing process and displayed on folded double pages. The pictures alternate with selected lines from the sex education book. The process of leafing through the book and unfolding the pages together with the shifting between word and image, quotation and drawing evoke a poetic commentary. The book has a Swiss-style cut-flush binding, making it possible to pull out individual sheets as you might with a drawing pad. Due to the special printing process they are unique.
Where do little children come from?
Author Herbert Stattler
Design Herbert Stattler, Helmut Völter
Printing Thomas Siemon
8.7 x 13.4 inch, 156 pages, language: english
Relief printing of photopolymer clichés with 42 double-sided illustrations and 36 double-sided text plates.
Swiss-style cut-flush binding with laminated cover, endleaf and dust jacket.
Leipzig 2018.
ISBN EN 978-3-95905-217-7
Spector Books
Harkortstrasse 10
D-04107 Leipzig
Special Edition
»Where do little children come from?« is also available as a special edition in a run of five copies, numbered 1–5: signed original drawing and book, together with the first edition of the sex education book ›Woher kommen die kleinen Kinder?‹, published in 1957. Each drawing is a variation of a drawing in the series Klandestine Geschichten, wrapped in a paper envelope and tissue paper.
Format of the drawing: 19.7 x 8.7 inch.
Box: lid and bottom made from cardboard, covered inside and out with paper. Format of the box: 20.4 x 9.4 x 1.4 inch. Available at:
Galerie Druck & Buch
Berggasse 21/2
A-1090 Wien
Margarete Vöhringer in conversation with Herbert Stattler about his book »Where do little children come from?« on 25th September 2019 at the oqbo gallery Berlin. In German. Video by Christian Bilger on Vimeo.