The thirsty man
The poster "Tuborg-Øl" ( German Tuborg beer ) known as "The Thirsty Man" ( Danish Den tørstige mand ) comes from the Danish painter and illustrator Erik Henningsen (1855-1930), who created the picture in 1900 as part of a poster competition for the once independent Danish brewery Tuborg . The poster, which has been known far beyond Denmark's borders for over a century, is considered to be the main work among the beer advertising posters that were created around the turn of the century. An unsigned lithograph is now kept in the Designmuseum Danmark , which has the oldest poster collection in the country, in Copenhagen.
Poster competition
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Tuborg-Øl beer brand, Tuborg held a poster competition in February 1900 in which artists were invited to create a "decorative advertising poster" including a beer label. The award was given to 10,000 Danish kroner , a tempting sum for the time, which led to lively participation in the competition. The brewery appointed a three-person jury made up of well-known art connoisseurs, the painter Johan Rohde , the shape cutter Frederik Hendriksen and the artistic pharmacist Alfred Benzon. The numerous designs submitted, which were publicly exhibited in Frederiksborggade in central Copenhagen in May 1900 , included works by painters such as Peder Klint , Mogens Ballin and Sigurd Swane .
The winner's prize went to the painter Jens Ferdinand Willumsen , whose proposal depicts a worker in a yellow shirt drinking beer. But the managing director of Tuborg, Benny Dessau, preferred the work of Henningsen, who had initially created the picture as an oil painting , over the others and brought it into production. Dessau justified his decision with the words “Art has any forstand på, men plakaten, det he der der!” (“I have no art understanding, but the poster is!”).
Description and history of the picture
A corpulent, red-cheeked man is depicted in a wasteland, giving the impression of sweating in the scorching heat. The motive is intended to arouse understanding for the thirsty man by not giving "an immediate prospect of his needs being met". Presumably one or more people were the models for the portrait. But Henningsen got the idea for the motif, which includes the depicted situation with the background as well as the man's special posture and clothing, from a drawing that was published in the German weekly Fliegende Blätter in 1893 . Only the railing on which the thirsty man is leaning is based on an inspiration of the painter.
Contrary to the conventions of the time to display advertised goods, the poster does not contain any references to the range, packaging, taste or color of the product. Henningsen minimized his statement on the situation of thirst and refrained from depicting the bottle. The picture does not even contain a foaming beer, a toasting gesture or even a ray of light that could help the man. The fact that the situation does not come to an end creates pity in the viewer.
The timeless presentation, characteristic of the era of naturalism , made a decisive contribution to the fact that the poster was able to keep its topicality up to the present day. In order to strengthen advertising campaigns in the global market, Tuborg held other large poster competitions in the second half of the 20th century, but they no longer resulted in a classic like Henningsen's Thirsty Man .
Individual evidence
- ^ The Store Danske : Erik Henningsen . Retrieved January 10, 2011 (Danish)
- ↑ a b c Kunstindustrimuseet : Den danske plakat 1890-1945 - Erik Henningsen 1855-1930 ( Memento from March 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved January 10, 2011 (Danish)
- ↑ a b c d e f Lars Dybdahl: Den Danske poster . Ed .: Kunstbogklubben. 1st edition. Borgens Forlag, Copenhagen 1994, ISBN 87-7807-311-1 , p. 201 ff . (Danish).
- ↑ Den Store Danske, Biografisches Lexikon, Benny Dessau