Ilham Aliev is a successful endgame composer. One of his latest successes was 2nd special prize in the 2nd FIDE World Cup 2011.
Aliev, Ilham Olimpiya Dünyasi, 2008 3rd Prize 
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Anthony John Taffs (16-01-1916 - 04-02-2005) American composer
[Source: M.McDowell]
As Steven Dowd mentions in a comment:
In the little-known but excellent book, "Beauty is Where You Find It," by Sweeney and Barclay, it is noted that "Taffs, Professor of Music at Albion College, could be called the 'king of letter problems,' with Pal Benko challenging him."
Taffs, Anthony John U.S. Problem Bulletin, 1967 2nd Prize 
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Wolf Willi Böhringer (16-01-1930 - 03-08-2011) German composer
Wolf Böhringer was a chess player, columnist and directmover composer. He held a chess column in the newspaper "Heilbronner Stimme" from 1951 until 2011.
More details about him on Wikipedia and in the obituary published in "Heilbronner Stimme".
Mirko Degenkolbe also wrote a lengthier article about Wolf Böhringer's contribution to German chess composition in die Schwalbe 251, October 2011. It also includes 6 directmovers by Böhringer and it can be read here.
Böhringer, Wolf Willi Schach (magazine) 1970 (6281) 
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Werner Lauterbach (16-01-1913 - 20-10-1989) German composer
Werner Lauterbach was a chess player, journalist, tourney organizer and writer. Edward Winter reminded on ChessNotes that in Chess 1965 he was thus distinguished: ‘He has the lamentable distinction of being – throughout the English-speaking world, anyway – the most under-estimated chess writer in the world.’
He also composed helpmates.
Lauterbach, Werner Deutsche Märchenschachzeitung, 1931 Dedicated to W. Karsch 
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Arieh Grinblat (16-01-1937 - 21-04-2019) Israeli composer and International Master
Arieh Grinblat composed in many genres, with a pronounced taste for threemovers. He obtained the IM title in 2014.
Some works of his can be seen on the Variantim website.
Grinblat, Arieh The Problemist, 1998 1st Prize 
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Grinblat, Arieh Israel Ring Tourney, 1995 1st Prize 
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In the little-known but excellent book, "Beauty is Where You Find It," by Sweeney and Barclay, it is noted that "Taffs, Professor of Music at Albion College, could be called the 'king of letter problems,' with Pal Benko challenging him." Indeed, I have never seen a Taffs problem that was not a shape problem.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the info! Indeed most of Taffs' diagrams seem to represent a letter of some kind.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I could not see any in the diagram of this #2 by Taffs: http://www.yacpdb.org/?id=25177
Do you have any idea what it might be?