Ernst Deutsch-Dryden

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Ernst Deutsch-Dryden (born August 3, 1887 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † March 17, 1938 in Los Angeles ) was an Austrian costume designer and commercial artist .

Live and act

Advertisement for the Manoli company by Ernst Deutsch-Dryden (1914)

The artist was born as the son of a Jewish businessman from Szeged under the name Ernst Deutsch in Vienna. Nothing is known about his school education. According to his own statement, German was a student at the Kunstgewerbeschule (now the University of Applied Arts ) in Vienna, although he is repeatedly erroneously mentioned as a student of Gustav Klimt in this context . In fact, German does not appear in the student lists at the Kunstgewerbeschule, but was probably a guest student. Between 1910 and 1916 he worked for the renowned Hollerbaum art print company and in 1911 he moved to Berlin to work as the "first employee" for the Berlin magazine " Elegante Welt ". The path from Vienna to Berlin was a logical one, which many Austrian graphic artists such as Julius Klinger , Franz Christophe , Victor Theodor Slama , Theo Matejko or Mihály Biró followed, because Berlin was open-minded and modern at the time. Protestant Berlin was more tolerant of Jews, mixed marriages were allowed, while in Vienna under Mayor Karl Lueger anti-Semitism became socially acceptable. His advertising posters , created until 1918, belong to the “golden age of poster art”. Alongside Lucian Bernhard , Ludwig Hohlwein , Hans Rudi Erdt and his Austrian colleagues, Dryden was one of the most important representatives of the art of advertising .

The First World War and a plagiarism scandal suddenly ended his career in Berlin. After the publication of a black list compiled by Hans Reimann in 1916 of commercial graphic artists whose graphic designs Reimann believed he had exposed as plagiarism, and in which German was mentioned in a prominent place, German could have caused them to leave Berlin and return to Vienna. His beginning career in Berlin had now been interrupted and a new start in Berlin after the end of the war failed. Deutsch therefore went back to Vienna, where he worked as a women's and men's fashion designer for Kniže & Comp. worked and subsequently helped it to gain international recognition. In 1919 he started his career again under the pseudonym "Dryden". Why he got the name "Dryden" is still a mystery today. He probably took the name out of admiration for the American illustrator Helen Dryden, who worked for Vogue. But it was not until July 3, 1931, that Ernst Deutsch's name was officially changed from German to Dryden by decision of the state governor. Dryden was always an elegantly dressed bon vivant and "party animal". Billy Wilder even saw him as "the most elegant man in the world ".

Advertising stamp for the Manoli company by Ernst Deutsch-Dryden (ca.1910)

In 1926 Deutsch-Dryden moved to Paris, where he took over the art direction of the magazine “Die Dame”. At the same time he also designed for Coco Chanel and his most daring advertising work as a graphic designer for customers and products such as " Bugatti ", " Cinzano ", "Canadian Club Whiskey" or the perfume "Eau de Vie" were also created at this time. The leitmotif of his work was less luxury than the establishment of his own advertising style. A style that he implemented at the same time with his young business partner Helene "Hello" Wolff-Budischovsky for Hello Wear and thus sent the Viennese shop of the same name, the Hello Boutique, to which he continued to provide fashion designs and tips from Hollywood. Immediately after the opening in 1936 on the Graben (in the center of Vienna), Prince Edward and his wife Wallis Simpson were among their first customers , style icons of their time and ambassadors of timeless elegance at the time.

Around 1929 Deutsch-Dryden emigrated to the USA, where he first stopped in New York and worked for large fashion houses such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, Marshall Field & Co. There he designed for the first time drafts for the emerging market of mass clothing. The new environment and the fact that he was now making elegant ready-to-wear goods, but not haute couture, quickly made him want to change his career. In 1933 he was finally able to gain a foothold in Hollywood's film industry as a costume designer. He worked for the Universal , Columbia and Selznick studios. His costume designs for Grace Moore , Mary Astor and Jane Wyatt were later adapted for clothing. He also personally outfitted Marlene Dietrich , whom he still knew from Berlin, for the first Technicolor film “The Garden of Allah”, which was a great pleasure for him, as she represented his “optical ideal”.

The artist died in 1938, five days after Hitler invaded Austria. of a heart attack at his mansion in Hollywood, West Los Angeles.

The Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna dedicated an exhibition to Ernst Deutsch-Dryden from April to July 2002, in which mainly posters and advertising graphics were to be seen. Including posters for “ Salamander Shoes ”, “Anker Versicherung” and “ Austro-Daimler ” or advertisements for “Elegant World”, “Die Dame” and “ Neue Freie Presse ”. The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg showed a smaller collection presentation in 2018 together with drawings by the illustrator Marlice Hinz (1903–1978).

Filmography

Costume design for Margo Albert in the film "Lost Horizon" with attached fabric sample, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

Deutsch-Dryden designed costumes in nine film productions:

literature

Web links

Commons : Ernst Deutsch-Dryden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Billy Wilder: Foreword. In: Anthony Lipmann: Divinely Elegant. The World of Ernst Dryden. Pavilion Books Limited, London 1989
  2. ^ Rudolf Ulrich: Austrians in Hollywood. First edition, Edition S, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3901932291 , p. 65
  3. ^ Ernst Deutsch-Dryden. En Vogue! ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Description of the exhibition on MAK.at  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mak.at
  4. ^ Exhibition "The Lady. Marlice Hinz and Ernst Dryden illustrate the 20s" (April 10, 2018 - September 30, 2018). Retrieved February 8, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Deutsch-Dryden, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES German, Ernst (maiden name); Dryden, Ernst; Dryden, Ernest
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1938
Place of death los Angeles