Franziska Baruch

Franzisca Baruch (1935)

Application example of the Hebrew print "Stam" (1930)

Franziska (Franzisca) Baruch (born November 21, 1901 in Hamburg ; † September 3, 1989 in Jerusalem ) was a German - Israeli calligrapher and designer of Hebrew scripts.

Professional background

Baruch studied between 1919 and 1925 in Berlin at the teaching facility of the Prussian Museum of Applied Arts , where she attended the graphic and book art class led by Ernst Böhm . In addition, she took private courses in handwriting with Else Marcks-Penzig. In 1926 she designed the typefaces for the pavilion of the German League of Independent Welfare Care at the GeSoLei in Düsseldorf and was responsible for the typographical aspects of the state's self-image at the Pressa in Cologne in 1928 on behalf of Reichskunstwart Edwin Redslob .

Hebrew font design

With the request for the design of the text of a bibliophile Haggadah with woodcuts by the expressionist artist Jakob Steinhardt , which was published in an edition of 200 by Ferdinand Ostertag in 1921, an intensive examination of historical Hebrew writings began. When in 1922 the first issue of by Rachel and Mark Wischnitzer in Hebrew and Yiddish published art and literary magazine Rimon respectively. Milgroim appeared, Baruch drew the fonts for the main and subtitles. Baruch also created calligraphic works for other publications by Rimon Verlag, which is part of the magazine.

A Hebrew font draft Baruch based on the type of Haggadah by Gershom Kohen was published in 1928 by the type foundry H. Berthold AG under the name "Stam". Baruch created a thinner version of this script for the orientalist Leo A. Mayer, who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . A new cut of this typeface was later offered as "Mayer-Baruch" by Moshe Spitzer's Jerusalem Type Foundry.

A fruitful collaboration with Salman Schocken began around 1927 . He was planning an edition of Samuel Agnon's Hebrew stories , for which he was looking for a suitable Hebrew print. Baruch suggested the re-casting of a font based on a type by the Venetian printer Daniel Bomberg . For the first four volumes of the Agnon edition published by the newly founded Schocken Verlag in July 1931, however, a Hebrew type from the Drugulin store in Leipzig was used.

In 1933 Franziska Baruch migrated to Palestine . Here Baruch's new version of the historical Bomberg type was used as the corporate typeface of the Hotsa'at Schocken publishing house, founded in 1937 by Salman Schocken and managed by his son Gershom. After the Schocken family took over the Hebrew daily Haaretz in 1935, Baruch was given the task of redesigning the newspaper title. She also worked for the architects Erich Mendelsohn and Joseph Neufeld, for whom she designed various building inscriptions. In addition, Baruch created various bookplates , medals and logos .

literature

• Philipp Messner: From calligraphy to font design. Franzisca Baruch in Berlin. In: old-new fonts. Typographic and book design work by Moshe Spitzer , Franzisca Baruch and Henri Friedlaender . Exhibition catalog. German Literature Archive, Marbach 2015, ISBN 978-3-00-050011-4 , pp. 10–15.
• Silke Schaeper: Baruch, Franziska. In: General Artist Lexicon . Supplementary volume 2. de Gruyter, Berlin, p. 284.
• Gideon Stern, Henri Friedlaender: Franzisca Baruch. In: Israel Bibliophile Newsletter. 1984, No. 4, pp. 1-4. (PDF; 555 kB)
• Ittai Tamari: Francisca Baruch. In: New Hebrew Letter Type. Exhibition catalog. Keter, Jerusalem 1985, OCLC 16657645 , pp. 45-51.
• Ada Wardi (Ed.): New Types. Three Pioneers of Hebrew Graphic Design. Exhibition catalog. Israel Museum, Jerusalem 2016, ISBN 978-965-278-457-5 .
• Ada Wardi (Ed.): New Types. Three pioneers of Hebrew graphic design. 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817257-2-8 .

Exhibitions

• 2015/2016: New Types. Three Pioneers of Hebrew Graphic Design. Palevsky Design Pavilion, Israel Museum in Jerusalem
• 2017: "New Types", Museum for Printing Art in Leipzig

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bezalel Narkiss: Rachel Wischnitzer, Doyenne of Historians of Jewish Art. In: Rachel Wischnitzer: From Dura to Rembrandt: Studies in the History of Art. Aldrich, Milwaukee 1990, ISBN 3-900731-16-0 , p. 18.
2. ^ Franzisca Baruch (1901-1989) . In: @GI_weltweit . ( goethe.de [accessed September 26, 2017]).
3. ↑ Handbook of Fonts. Second addendum. Albrecht Seemann, Leipzig 1929, p. 19. (PDF; 6.4 MB)
4. ^ Central Council of Jews in Germany Kdö.R .: Israel Museum: What kind of types | Jewish general. Retrieved September 26, 2017 (English). 
5. ^ New Types - Museum for the Art of Printing Leipzig. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 27, 2017 ; accessed on September 26, 2017 . 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.