I Never Knew His Name

Though I did not know his name until today, Heinz Edelman has been one of my artistic heroes for decades. He was the illustrator and designer who made the visual landscape of the animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine. Heinz Edelman has died at age 75.

The movie’s mod-psychedelic look, which typifies the era’s spirited graphic art, emerged around the same time as the related psychedelic work of Terry Gilliam, Alan Aldridge and Victor Moscoso, but it has its own whimsical aesthetic. The bulbous Blue Meanies, which personify an evil mood as actual villains, pursue the innocent, well-coifed cartoon Beatles across an ever-shifting milieu of mysterious seas and holes that can be magically picked up and moved. The yellow submarine itself stops in an ocean of pulsating watches, representing time, to light a cigar for a friendly sea monster.

Notably, the designs prefigured contemporary music videos, especially in their use of dancing typography. Letters spelling out the lyrics “Love is all you need” morph into a strobing neon wallpaper pattern.

“He became famous because of his work on ‘Yellow Submarine,’ ” said the graphic designer Milton Glaser, a friend. “But that celebrity actually obscured his real talent and imagination.”

A highly successful advertising and editorial illustrator in Germany, England and the Netherlands, Mr. Edelmann was known for combining Impressionist and Expressionist sensibilities leavened with wit, humor and irony. He developed a distinct graphic style that influenced many artists in Europe and the United States. He was given a Masters Series exhibition at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2005.

In the 1960s he was experimenting with a stylized, soothingly fluid, neo-Art Nouveau manner. That caught the eye of Al Brodax, producer of a successful animated Beatles television cartoon series for children. He chose Mr. Edelmann to be the chief designer of his first feature-length animated film, “Yellow Submarine,” built around a 1966 song of the same name, credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with lead vocals by Ringo Starr.

It was not easy to get initial approval for “Yellow Submarine.” The Beatles were unenthusiastic about Mr. Brodax’s more conventional-looking cartoon series (not done by Mr. Edelmann), Newsweek reported in 1968; their manager, Brian Epstein, was a stumbling block as well.

The tide turned, Newsweek said, during a stroll through the Tate Gallery in London, where Mr. Brodax and Mr. Epstein happened upon J. M. W. Turner’s “Peace — Burial at Sea” and marveled at that painting’s intense colors.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could get those colors to move?” Mr. Brodax asked.

Mr. Epstein replied, “We would need great art.”

Mr. Edelmann was the perfect artist, Mr. Epstein finally agreed, and “Yellow Submarine” had some of the Turner’s shimmering quality.

It was a career-defining work, “designed, for the most part beautifully,” Renata Adler wrote in The New York Times in 1968, “in styles ranging through Steinberg, Arshile Gorky, Bob Godfrey (of the short film ‘The Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit’), the Sgt. Pepper album cover, and — mainly, really — the spirit and conventions of the Sunday comic strip.”

Despite the huge influence of “Yellow Submarine” on the culture of the time, Mr. Edelmann admitted that he could never quite connect with the 1960s aesthetic. Once the film was complete, he altered his approach to avoid being pigeonholed as a psychedelic artist, becoming considerably less ethereal and decorative and turning to what was on the surface his darker side, though it was never really morose but rather ironic.

I am grateful to Mr. Edelman for his part in the creation of this imaginative world that has long been one of my favorite places to visit. Thank you, Heinz Edelman. Rest in peace.