GEBRAUCHSGRAPHIK
International Advertising Art October 1931
Professor H.K. Frenzel [Editor]*
Berlin: Gebrauchsgraphik, October 1931. Original edition [Volume 14, Number 10]. Parallel texts in German and English. Quarto. Side stitched and perfect bound printed wrappers. 68 pp. Illustrated articles and trade advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Cover artwork by W. Roveroni. Wrappers lightly worn and soiled with a chewed spine heel. Textblock with a faint dampstain to lower edge of rear advertising matter with no editorial content affected, but a very good or better copy.
9.25 x 12.25 vintage magazine with 68 pages of editorial content and around 20 pages of advertising trade ads. Editorial Contents represent the best of European Art Deco Commercial and Advertising Art, Posters, Photography and Packaging circa 1937. The advertising shows the strong Bauhaus influences of Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer, as well as echoes of El Lissitzky, Piet Zwart and Jan Tschichold's neue typografie.
The highlights of this issue are the knockout feature on Italian Graphic Design -- they sure made Fascism look good. Contents:
- Italian Advertising Art: G. G. Görlich.
- Italian Periodicals: Dr. F. H. Kluge
- Exhibition Architecture in Italy
- The Evolution of Typography in Italy: Giuseppi Pagano
Includes work by Erberto Carboni, Marcello Nizzolli, Boccasile, W. Roveroni, Seneca, M. Dudovich, Guerrini, Resentera, Ima, Umberto Zimelli, Emma Calderini, Aldo Pini, Baldinelli, Giordani, Baldinelli, Guido Modiano, Popi, Edoardo Persico, and many others.
Gebrauchsgraphik was the leading voice of the Avant-Garde influence on the European Commercial Art and Advertising industries before World War II. In the thirties, all roads led through Berlin, and Gebrauchsgraphik spotlighted all of the aesthetic trends fermenting in Europe -- Art Deco and Surrealism from Paris, Constructivism from Moscow, Futurist Fascism from Rome, De Stijl and Dutch typography from Amsterdam, and of course the spreading influence of the Dessau Bauhaus. A journal that was truly international in scope , all articles and cutlines are presented in both German and English.
The thirties were the Golden Age for European Poster Art and Gebrauchsgraphik was in the perfect place to showcase all the latest and greatest trends and rising artists for the rest of the world. Gebrauchsgraphik was an incredibly influential journal and agenda setter, most notably to a young man in Brooklyn named Paul Rand. According to his biographical notes, Rand's exposure to Gebrauchsgraphik in the early thirties created his desire to become a Commercial Artist. The rest is history.
Gebrauchsgraphik utilized the latest printing and press technologies and often included custom colors, bound-in samples and advertising fold-outs, foil stamps, die-cuts and other special finishing effects.
Founded in 1923 by Professor H. K. Frenzel, Gebrauchsgraphik was the leading voice of the Avant-Garde influence on the European Commercial Art and Advertising industries before World War II. In the thirties, all roads led through Berlin, and Gebrauchsgraphik spotlighted all of the aesthetic trends fermenting in Europe -- Art Deco and Surrealism from Paris, Constructivism from Moscow, Futurist Fascism from Rome, De Stijl and Dutch typography from Amsterdam, and of course the spreading influence of the Dessau Bauhaus. A journal that was truly international, presented in both German and English.
Gebrauchsgraphik was in the perfect place to showcase all the latest and greatest European trends and rising artists for the rest of the world. Gebrauchsgraphik was an incredibly influential journal and agenda setter, most notably to a young man in Brooklyn named Paul Rand. According to his biographical notes, Rand's exposure to Gebrauchsgraphik in the early thirties created his desire to become a Commercial Artist. The rest is history.
* Design Historian and all-around mensch Steven Heller on H.K. Frenzel: “This is not the anniversary of H.K. Frenzel's birth (1882) or death (1937) but it is the commemoration of both, decades much too late.
“While researching another project through scores of issues of his historic magazine, Gebrauchsgraphik: International Advertising Art, I came across a benignly covered edition from November 1937.
“Do the math . . . that was four years after the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany, where Dr. Frenzel's magazine began publishing in 1924. This issue had many advertisements for Black Letter typefaces and an ad for ALA (Allgemeine Anzeigen Gesellschaft), which was the German advertising society to promote German newspaper and periodical advertising in Germany, which served as the Nazis' own advertising. The magazine also had features on a host of "sanctioned" German gebrauchsgraphikers, who belonged to the Reich Chamber of Commercial Arts.
“Dr. Frenzel was not pleased with the Nazification (Gleichschaltung ) of his magazine, which had never taken an overt political stand. In 1937 Frenzel died of a "bug" he caught while in Italy. Although he had recovered, seemingly it was more virulent than the doctors had thought-or so the story goes. Nonetheless, rumors quickly surfaced that he took his own life.
“The memorial article in the November 1937 issue by E. Hölscher begins, "Our late friend H.K. Frenzel would certainly not have wished that an attempt should be made in the following lines devoted to his memory to give renewed expression to the profound and general dismay caused by his unexpected decease. He himself was much too optimistic and interested in the present to indulge willingly in melancholy thoughts for any length of time, and even beyond the circle of his more intimate friends the grief and sympathy even among those who had only met him once were so really heartfelt and genuine that they require no further confirmation as evidence of general respect which he enjoyed."
“And yet, his admirers were moved to celebrate how the magazine-his creation-"on which he worked with absolute devotion until the lasts days of his life, has been subjected to certain changes in the course of fourteen years." Meaning over the last four the Nazi dictates against modern and culturally un-German content was verbotten.
“Frenzel wrote "The works reproduced by me in Gebrauchsgraphik are entirely in accordance with the idea I have adopted as the policy of my periodical. I wish to circumscribe a circle covering what can be regarded as good present-day graphic art. If I were to take to publishing only what satisfies me completely I should have to adopt a certain policy, and the periodical would no longer reflect the present state of graphic art."
“True to his word, Frenzel published many approaches from all over the world. The common denominator was quality. Whether modern or classical, comic or serious, experimental or traditional, he maintained a level that set the standard. With the Nazis in power, his circle had been excruciatingly tightened, his standard had dropped, his life was not worth living.”