Ruth Michaëls was the daughter of a library director. She attended a school of applied arts, worked as a drawing teacher in
Berlin for three years, and spent a year in
Munich on a scholarship. Afterwards, she attended the
Berlin University of the Arts and studied under F. Spiegels and the artist
Käthe Kollwitz. In 1928, Ruth Michaëls married the press illustrator and
caricaturist Martin Koser (Martin Koser-Michaëls; 1903–1971), who worked as an illustrator for the magazines Ulk, BIZ, and Uhu. Among their best-known works are the
watercolour illustrations for the fairy tale collections of the Brothers Grimm (1937), Andersen (1938), Hauff (1939), and Bechstein (1940), as well as the illustrations for the series "Old German Folk Tales," published by the Winter Relief Fund of the German People (WHW), such as "Puss in Boots" (No. 6, 1941) and "Cinderella" (No. 9, 1941) After the
Second World War, Ruth Koser-Michaëls and her husband worked for, among others, the
Stuttgart-based publishing house
Der Neue Schulmann, for which, for example, they designed a historical frieze for school use in 1953 (accompanying texts: Dr. Hans Heumann). They also designed children's books, games, and further collections of fairy tales. In 1958, a fairy tale book written by Martin Koser-Michaëls and illustrated jointly by the couple was published: Der Jakob von Rotmerkelhof – Eine Mär um die Fresken von Unterschalling. This illustration was still included in the first post-war edition. == Illustrated Works (Selected) ==