Eduard Gustav May
The Eduard Gustav May company (later May & Wirsing and EG May Sons) was a Frankfurt art publisher that existed from 1845 to 1914
and one of the leading German producers of popular prints.
Company history
1845–1878: EG May and May & Wirsing
The company was founded on December 22nd, 1845 by the autodidact in the lithography shop Eduard Gustav May (1818–1907) in the Großer Hirschgraben with an old hand press. First May published art sheets based on works by Frankfurt artists. The first big deal May 1848 made with the order of the publisher Keller to produce views of the Paulskirche and the parliament as well as portraits of the members of parliament. May then bought six new presses, which he used to print event pictures and political caricatures in large numbers. In the 1850s the company produced not only colored artist illustrations, but also a series of portraits of Frankfurt dignitaries and artists. In 1860 the company relocated to a new building in Eschersheimer Landstrasse 28/32. At this time May also began to produce delicately colored gene graphics for upper -class home furnishings.
From 1850 to 1863 Johann Gustav Wirsing was a partner in the company that was now called May & Wirsing. Thanks to Wirsing's capital support, the company was able to develop into a picture manufacturer. The majority of popular graphics were depictions of saints and biblical motifs for the Catholic country house. The profane motifs included genre pictures, scenes from children, animal motifs, landscapes and seascapes. From 1864 the company was called EG May again. In 1870 the first high-speed press was installed, which accelerated the output of the goods. Some of the goods were exported abroad, from 1870 also to Spain and overseas. The Franco-Prussian War offered the opportunity to print en masse battle pictures and portraits of princes. From 1877 chromolithographic congratulatory cards for export to England formed the main part of the business.
1878–1914: EG May Sons
After EG May left the company in 1878, his two sons Robert and Franz took over the company, which was renamed EG May Sons. In 1880, the Mays sold off all of the old production in order to concentrate only on the chromolithography business from now on. In 1880/82 the factory was expanded with seven size IV high-speed presses and again with ten size V in 1884/86. In 1881 Fridolin Leiber became head of the lithographic studio.
Friedrich Diefenbach became a junior partner and expanded the company commercially by opening up new markets and sales methods. Since the aging May sons did not have a company manager who knew the industry, Diefenbach's successor Carl Döring was only able to save the company by merging with the relentlessly competing Dresden company Kunstanstalten AG in 1914 . The Kunstanstalten May AG (KAMAG) emerged from the merger . The similarity of the name is coincidental; the KAMAG owner Adolf May jun. was not related to the Frankfurt Mays.
literature
- Wolfgang Brückner : Petty bourgeois and affluent bourgeois wall decorations in the 20th century. In art and consumption - mass image research (= folklore as historical cultural studies 6; publications on folklore and cultural history 82). Pp. 407-444. Wuerzburg 2000
- Wolfgang Brückner, Christa Pieske : The picture factory. Documentation on the art and social history of industrial wall decoration production between 1845 and 1973 using the example of a large company. Historical Museum Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt 1973