GESTALT UND FUNKTION DER TYPOGRAFIE
Albert Kapr and Walter Schiller
Leipzig, GDR: Fachbuchverlag, 1983. First edition thus. Text in German. Quarto. Embossed black cloth with paper label to spine. Orange endpapers. Printed dust jacket. Placeholder ribbon. 410 pp. Fully illustrated with multi colored typographic examples. Red spine type sunned and trivial wear overall, but a nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
8.5 x 11.75-inch hardcover book with 410 pages fully illustrated with multi colored typographic examples. Western audiences seem criminally uninformed regarding the excellence of this beautifully designed and printed GDR edition. You have been duly warned.
Includes typographic examples by Stephane Mallarme, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hugo Ball, F. T. Marinetti, Tristan Tzara, Theo van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters, John Heartfield, Jan Tschichold, Piet Zwart, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Henryk Berlewi, Walter Dexel, Herbert Bayer, Max Bill, Max Caflisch, H. N. Werkman, Solomon Telingater, Massin, Georg Trump, Käte Steinitz, Crosby Fletcher Forbes Gill, Wim Crouwel, Alan Fletcher, Karl Gerstner, HAP Grieshaber, Herb Lubalin, Josef Müller-Brockmann, Josua Reichert, Imre Reiner, Emil Ruder, Willem Sandberg, Hermann Zapf, and others.
Albert Kapr (Germany, 1918 – 1995) was a type designer, calligrapher, typographer, university lecturer, and author. As a professor for lettering and book design at the Academy for Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig , he had a decisive influence on the development of lettering and book art in the German Democratic Republic. His realized typefaces include Faust antiqua and italics, Leipziger Antiqua, italics and bold, Neutral, Magna Cyrillic, and Prillwitz Antiqua and Italic.
In 1933 Kapr began a typesetter apprenticeship at the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt in Stuttgart, where he also actively involved himself in leftist politics. By 1934, him and his comrades incurred the wrath of the ruling system when they organized several leaflet campaigns in the Stuttgart area. After multiple arrests and skirmishes with the authorities, the member of Group G. painted the slogans "Hitler=War" and "Red Front" in red on the base of the famous horse-tamer statue in Stuttgart. Kapr was quickly arrested and sentenced to one year in prison for "aiding in the preparation of high treason.”
After his release from prison, he began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart in 1938. Kapr did military service from 1939 to 1945. He then continued his studies from 1945 to 1948 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart with FH Ernst Schneidler. He then became a master student and assistant for writing at the Technical University of Stuttgart.
In 1948 Kapr was appointed to the University of Architecture and Fine Arts in Weimar (since 1996 Bauhaus University Weimar). From 1951 he was a professor of typeface and book design at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. From 1959 to 1961 and from 1966 to 1973 he held the position of rector. In 1955 he initiated the founding of the institute for book design at the university and headed it from 1955 to 1978.
Even before the Second World War , typeface design was held in high regard at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. War devastation and difficulties resulting from the subsequent division of Germany had a particularly drastic effect on the printing industry in East Germany. This made the design and production of new typefaces urgently necessary. By hiring the retired punch cutter Otto Erler and in close cooperation with the company Typoart Dresden, he also created the conditions for a "type laboratory” for designing typefaces from draft to typesetting. From 1963 to 1977 Kapr was artistic director of the type foundry VEB Typoart Dresden. In 1958/59 the first GDR competition for new work typefaces took place. The aim of the international competition that followed in 1971 was to create typefaces whose design also used manual typesetting and the Monotype and Linotype systems. In 1985, Typoart organized a GDR competition to develop new commercial typefaces.
As early as the 1970s, Kapr registered the beginnings of widespread ignorance of the formal and aesthetic appearance of the typeface internationally, but especially in Germany, and with it a grandiose loss of value. Beyond its purely communicative function, he considered writing to be one of the most precious cultural assets of mankind. Many of Kapr's activities were based on the hope of being able to curb this development or even turn it around for the better. A step in this direction were therefore his initiatives to change the school handwriting of the GDR. Inspired by the meeting with representatives of the "Society for Italic Handwriting” (1957), a short time later he emphatically campaigned for the improvement of writing in schools at the Ministry of Public Education.
Kapr campaigned with great commitment for the establishment and continuation of national and international book art competitions. As a special highlight, the International Book Art Exhibition in Leipzig was set up again in 1959 (it had taken place in Leipzig for the first time in 1927). It was held at intervals of about six years, usually under the artistic direction and also jury work of Kapr, until 1989. The most beautiful books from all over the world exhibition was held for the first time in 1963 as a link between these highlights of book art and continues to have an impact today.
After 1968 Kapr dealt intensively with the person and history of Johannes Gutenberg . He not only worked as a teacher and creatively, but also in a special way through a comprehensive scientific work. Along with Jan Tschichold , he leaves behind the most important work on the subject of typography and typeface design in German. Albert Kapr died on March 31, 1995 at the age of 76 in Leipzig.[ wikipedia, via translation]
Walter Schiller (Germany, 1920 – ) was one of the most influential designers in East Germany. Schiller won international prizes for his book design work including first prize in the Moscow book exhibition celebrating the centenary of Lenin's birth, and a gold medal at the Leipzig International Book Exhibition in 1971. In 1955 Schiller assisted Albert Kapr in the newly-founded Institut für Buchgestaltung (Book Design) at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB). Three years later he became director of the Typography department at the HGB, and eventually he became director of the book design department, HGB. He also served as Chairman, International Book Art Exhibition, Leipzig , and the Director of the Institute for Book Design, HGB.