In 1958, with a not completely rewarding and not very promising career as a janitor and museum guard compromised when he managed to drop a Rembrandt, a Van Gogh and a Felix Vallotton, Heinz Edelmann was looking for something less humdrum, more challenging and adventurous, and decided to take up graphic design (at the time, design did not seem to call for any special talents, skills or abilities). In this quest for new thrills he was, however, fated to be cruelly disappointed: even though he produced a fair amount of posters (theatre, film, radio and TV) and designed numerous books and book jackets, illustrated about 50 books, worked in advertising (communications, canned vegetables, computers) and dabbled in animation, true excitement forever eluded him. Reliable observers unanimously describe him as crouching in a cluttered cubbyhole for 45 years, unnaturally immobile, hardly ever getting up, barely breathing, occasionally catching a fly with a lightning flick of his tongue.