Born in what was then Czechoslovakia, Edelmann went to Germany to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf, graduating in the 1950s. He received various commissions as a freelance designer, illustrator, and animator, such as illustrating the first German edition of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
But what really brought him to fame was a little film he worked on in the 1960s, based on a popular song — Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. Edelmann’s art for the psychedelic 1968 film captured and extended the pop art of the era, and the film was a smash hit, with audiences going to see it both for the stunning visuals and the Beatles soundtrack. Edelmann “became famous because of his work on ‘Yellow Submarine’,” said graphic designer Milton Glaser. “But that celebrity actually obscured his real talent and imagination.”
Once the film was completed, Edelmann purposefully moved away from psychedelic art styles to avoid typecasting, preferring his own style which combined Impressionist and Expressionist schools of thought with ironic humor. He later taught design at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, and died in Stuttgart July 21 from heart and kidney disease. He was 75.