Carl Sonntag jun.

Carl Sonntag (* July 21, 1883 in Leipzig , † August 20, 1930 in Berlin ), generally always Carl Sonntag jun. , was an art bookbinder and cover designer who played a key role in the creation and development of the German book art movement before the First World War .

Life

Youth and education

Carl Sonntag jun. was born on July 21, 1883 as the son of the raw tobacco wholesaler Carl Sonntag senior. born in Leipzig. He was the second of four siblings. After school and graduating from Thomas High School , he completed a bookbinder in the Roßberg'schen bookstore. He then traveled to France and England to deepen his knowledge, including in the Sangorski & Sutcliffe workshop, which was founded in 1901 but is already recognized as one of the best art bookbinders in the world . In 1905, Sonntag was one of the first members of the Leipzig Bibliophile Evening founded by Fedor von Zobeltitz , where he featured important representatives of the book art scene such as the publishers Eugen Diederichs , Anton Kippenberg , Ernst Rowohlt and Julius Zeitler , the print shop owners Carl Ernst Poeschel and Johannes Baensch-Drugulin , met the book artist Walter Tiemann and the author Ricarda Huch .

Art bookbinder in Leipzig

In 1907 Carl Sonntag jun. his first bookbinding in the Leipziger Sternwartenstraße 19. With bibliophile bindings for the luxury publications of the Janus-Presse , the Ernst Ludwig Presse and the publishing house Hans von Weber , he made a name for himself as one of the most respected masters in his field in the German Empire . From 1909 he made the bindings for the special editions of Hans von Weber's hundred prints . In 1912 he founded the Jakob-Krauße-Bund together with Paul Kersten . In the same year he moved into new, more elegant premises at Albertstrasse 28 (today Riemannstrasse). From the middle of the year, Frieda Thiersch , who later became head of the Bremen bindery , came on Sundays to perfect her technical skills. Also in 1912, Carl Sonntag jun. for the Leipzig art antiquarian CG Boerner the auction catalog Precious Bookbinding of the XV. until XIX. Century , a richly illustrated, expertly described and provided with a personal foreword work in German and French, which defined new international standards for catalog equipment. In 1913, Sonntag was involved in the preparations for the 1914 International Book Trade and Graphics Exhibition by setting up a traditional bookbinding workshop . For reasons that had not yet been clarified, he closed his business at the end of 1913 and acquired his father's tobacco wholesaler, which he continued to run until 1929. In 1930 he tried a fresh start as an art bookbinder in Berlin, where he died on August 20th.

Foreclosure auction of the estate

During the time of National Socialism , Carl Sonntag's widow Laura, as a Jew, was forced to emigrate to the United States with their three children and leave their property behind. Sonntag had already sold part of his extensive collection of historical bookbinding tools to Insel-Verlag in 1914 . The rest of the tools, as well as a large number of valuable bindings and other works of art, were put up for auction in the course of the Aryanization of Jewish property. Through direct intervention at GESTAPO , the then director of the Leipzig City Library, Dr. Johannes Hofmann reported that Sunday's bindings were confiscated before the auction and incorporated into the holdings of the city library. Sunday's tools were sold to a Leipzig bookbinder at the auction in August 1942, and shortly afterwards they also came into the possession of the city library. Since the majority of the library's holdings had not been brought to safety even during the Second World War , the Sunday collection was destroyed in a bombing raid on December 4, 1943, with the exception of seven books. The attempt made about 50 years later to return the books to the daughters on Sundays failed.

plant

Carl Sonntag jun. is generally considered to be the first binding artist of the German book art movement. Following developments in England, where the reform movement around William Morris had ushered in a new era of book art with private presses such as the Kelmscott Press and the Doves Press , German publishers and book artists also began to look for new means of design for modern books. During his apprenticeship at Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Sonntag had come into contact with a traditionalist side of the handicraft that drew its inspiration from the magnificently furnished, exuberant ornamentation in the spirit of Zaehnsdorf and book covers not as objects of daily use, but as prestigious objects of a wealthy upper class treated. Sonntag turned against this elitist stance by advocating furnishings appropriate to the practical value of the book and the reduction of superfluous decorations. His aim was to produce bindings in a dignified craftsmanship that met the requirements of a modern book. As an art bookbinder he advocated the use of the best materials and craftsmanship at the highest level; At the same time, however, he expressly pointed out that high-quality leather and parchment volumes were reserved for the craft bookbinding industry for reasons of cost, while solidly processed linen and cardboard volumes were preferred for permanent utility bindings.

The designs for Sunday's luxury bindings were often given by the client. Wherever his own handwriting becomes visible, there is often an effort to find an external form that corresponds to the content. He achieved this through modern binding forms, which he enhanced with quotations from the respective epochs. For Venus and Tannhäuser by Aubrey Beardsley (Verlag Hans von Weber, 1908) he chose a flexible white calf parchment cover with a lid inlay based on a Beardsley design; he provided the Gudrunlied (Verlag Julius Bard, 1910) with an ungilded brown pigskin binding in the style of the 16th century with wooden covers and book clasps; the monumental edition Der Nibelunge Nôt (Munich, Hans von Weber 1911) received a calligraphically inscribed all-parchment cover with wooden covers, and for the drugulin print Anacreontic Oden and Songs (Leipzig, Ernst Rowohlt 1912) he designed a marbled calfskin binding with old fillets in taste of the Rococo.

Memberships

• German Book Trade Association
• Society of Bibliophiles
• Leipzig Bibliophile Evening
• Jakob Krauße Association of German Art Bookbinders

literature

• Helma Schäfer: A German bookbinder par excellence - Carl Sonntag jun. (1883-1930) . In: Kieser / Schlenker (Hrsg.): Mitteldeutsches Jahrbuch für Kultur und Geschichte 2013. German Foundation for Monument Protection, Monuments-Publications, Bonn 2013. Volume 20, pp. 84 ff.
• Helma Schäfer: Modern binding work as an object of binding research: Two Leipzig bookbinders as case studies - Carl Sonntag jun. and Otto Ulrich Fischer. In: Einband-Forschung 2009, No. 24, pp. 87-96
• Carl Sonntag jun .: From the book cover. In: The Modern Book. The graphic arts of the present. Volume 3, Stuttgart 1910.
• Carl Sonntag jun .: leather and book cover. In: Zwiebelfisch 3rd year 1912, issue 5 and 6 Munich, Verlag Hans von Weber 1912.

Web links

• Wortwelle blog: About the sudden disappearance of the bookbinder Carl Sonntag jun.
• Literature by and about Carl Sonntag jun. in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carl Sonntag junior: Letter to Christian and FW Kleukens , August 14, 1908. In: Harald Ernstberger, Bibliography of the Ernst Ludwig Press , Kleukens Archive Darmstadt, undated, archive number ELP 02g / h
2. ↑ Archive for Buchgewerbe 49.2, 1912, No. 11/12, November-December 1912
3. ↑ Paul Kersten: The parchment volume of Frieda Thiersch . In: Onion Fish 14, 1922, Heft 1–3, pp. 14–18.
4. ^ Carl Sonntag jun .: Precious book bindings of the XV. until XIX. Century . CG Boerner, Leipzig 1912.
5. ^ Regine Dehmel (Ed.): Jewish book ownership as looted property. Second Hanover Symposium . In: Journal for Libraries and Bibliography , special issue 88, Frankfurt / M., Klostermann 2006.
6. ^ Archives for the book trade. Founded by Alexander Waldow. Volume 47, February 1910, issue 2, page 33. Published by the German Book Trade Association, Leipzig 1910.