Zwart, Piet: DE ABSOLUTE FILM [Serie Monografieën over Filmkunst, Volume 8]. Rotterdam: W. L. en J. Brusse’s Uitgeversmaatschappij N. V., 1931.

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DE ABSOLUTE FILM

Serie Monografieën over Filmkunst, Volume 8

Dr. Menno Ter Braak and Piet Zwart 

Dr. Menno Ter Braak and Piet Zwart [Designer]: DE ABSOLUTE FILM [Serie Monografieën over Filmkunst, Volume 8]. Rotterdam: W. L. en J. Brusse's Uitgeversmaatschappij N. V., 1931. First edition. Quarto. Text in Dutch. Photo illustrated attached self wrappers [as issued]. 50 pp. 100 black and white illustrations. Vintage cellotape repair to well-worn spine. Light wear and chipping to edges. A very good or better copy.

6.85 x 8.55 digest with French folded attached wrappers with 50 pages and 100 black and white photographs of early film actors and directors, including work by Carl Dreyer, Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, Fernand Leger, Ruttman, Fritz Lang, Hans Richter and others. Piet Zwart experimented with a fragile heat-activated tissue laminate on the Filmkunst covers to give a glossed varnish to the type and photos in his compositions. This laminate has stiffened over the years and has rendered this whole series virtually impossible to find in collectible condition.

Each edition features cover design, title page typography and interior layouts by Piet Zwart -- these covers have been reprinted countless times in 20th century graphic design anthologies and stands as true high points of Avant-Garde graphic design.

Zwart's use of photomontage and typography for this 1930s series of 10 books on modern cinema show the Dutch "typotekt" at the height of his powers. With nearly a decade of typographic experimentation under his belt, Zwart flexed his considerable muscles on the covers of the Filmkunst series, being a stunning vitality to each volume. A highly recommended artifact from the heroic age of graphic design.

Piet Zwart (1885-1972) worked in many spheres, including graphic design, architecture, furniture and industrial design, painting, writing, photography, and design education. His association with the Avant-Garde and his acquaintance with artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, Vilmos Huszar, and El Lissitsky all helped to crystallize his own convictions and aesthetic visions.

In 1923 Zwart began an extraordinary client-designer relationship with the Nederlandsche Kabel Fabrick (Dutch Cable Factory). For the next ten years, he produced no less than 275 advertisements for the NKF. These typographic advertisements constitute Zwart’s major contribution to Dutch typography and form.

The NKF assignment can be divided into four segments: the magazine advertisements (1923-1933); Het Normalieenboekje (Normalization Booklet) (1924-25); the 64-page catalog published in Dutch and English (1928-29); and the information booklet Delft Kabels (1933). Het Normalieenbockje, one of Zwart’s least known works, represents a turning point in his typography. One major difference is the use of an additional contrast, color, which was absent in the advertisements. However, color was included not as a decorative element, but more as a graphic cue.

Like most others during this period, Zwart was self-taught in typography, and although he had been designing printed pieces since the end of 1921, acquiring the Nederlandsche Kable Fabriek as his main client made him realize just how little he actually knew about printing technology:

"The first design that I made for the NKF was hand drawn. I was still not finished with it when the publication had already come out. At that time I realized that this was not a very good way to work and then plunged headfirst into typography. The nice thing about all of this was that I actually learned about it from an assistant in the small printing company where the monthly magazine in electro-technology was being produced."
. . . After going through the bitter experience of that piece being too late, I made more sketches and then played typographic games with the assistant in the afternoon hours, how we could make this and that . . .
 "Actually, that's how I came to understand the typographic profession, I didn't know the terms, I didn't know the methods, I didn't even know the difference between capitals and lower case letters."

Zwart referred to himself as typotekt, a combination of the words typographer and architect. To a large extent this term did indeed express Zwart’s conception of his profession — the architect building with stone, wood, and metal; the graphic designer building with typographic material and other visual elements. Le Corbusier defined a house as a machine for living, and in the same sense Zwart’s typography could be called a "machine for reading."

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