Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke

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Portrait of Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke from around 1920

Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke (born October 16, 1878 in Hohensalza ; † February 3, 1965 in Widdersberg ) was a German graphic artist , type designer , illustrator and book designer; occasionally he is also mentioned as an (autodidactic) architect of a few buildings that have not been executed.

Poster by Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke for the Cologne Werkbund exhibition in 1914 in Hohenhof
Postage stamp for the trade show (1922) with the city arms of Munich designed by Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke

Life

Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke completed an apprenticeship as a lithographer in Berlin from 1893 to 1897 and then practically worked in his profession. From 1899 to 1901 he studied at the teaching institute of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin . Together with Georg Belwe , whom he knew from their apprenticeship at the Chromolithographic Institute Wolf Hagelberg , and the trained draftsman Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens , he founded the Steglitz workshop on October 16, 1900 . In 1900 he was the winner of a competition by Ludwig Stollwerck for designs for a Stollwerck scrapbook . Other award winners were Ernst Neumann from Munich, Adolf Höfer and Walter Püttner from Munich, Maximilian Liebenwein from Burghausen and Karl Hölle from Hamburg. The judges were professors Emil Doepler the Elder . J., Woldemar Friedrich , Bruno Schmitz and Franz Skarbina from Berlin as well as a partner in the Stollwerck company.

From 1903 he taught at the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts , from 1913 to 1938 he lived in Munich , where he worked at the School of Applied Arts and later the State School for Applied Arts . Heinrich Altherr persuaded him to take over the management of the graphics department at the Zurich trade school from 1920 to 1921 . It was there that he met his student at the time, Pierre Gauchat . The contact with him developed into a lifelong friendship. From 1924 to 1925 he headed the Association of German Commercial Graphics . Between 1913 and 1934 he ran his own book art company in Munich, the Rupprecht Presse .

Ehmcke was responsible for the overall concept of the Sonderbund exhibition in 1912 , which ranged from the signet, catalog and advertising banner to the design of the exhibition rooms. He left the walls white with thin, black boundary lines. It was the most consistently implemented exhibition concept of this kind up to that point, even if there had already been forerunners.

From 1946 to 1948 he taught as a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Munich . He also worked with the Walther CF Hirth publishing house and later with the CH Beck publishing house . During this work, 57 unillustrated prints were created, the typography of which was largely tailored to the content.

His preoccupation with typeface design became a central subject of his practical and theoretical work. From 1907 he created antiqua and Fraktur fonts for various type foundries . The Ehmcke-Antiqua and Ehmcke-Kursiv , published in 1909/1910, are probably the only fonts with a capitalized long s . They also have capitals for ß, ch and ck and are now available for computers under the name Carlton . Together with Rudolf Koch and the “Offenbacher Group” at the Offenbach Technical College , Ehmcke succeeded in getting written education to be included in the training program of general schools. Methodical writing lessons for ornamental and decorative writing became compulsory at the arts and crafts schools. In 1963 Ehmcke was awarded the Gutenberg Prize of the City of Leipzig .

Ehmcke was married to the painter, commercial artist and textile artist Clara Möller-Coburg (1869–1918). The marriage had two children. Daughter Susanne Ehmcke was a well-known children's book illustrator and author. In 1921 he married Hertha Kutscha (née Arendt) (1880–1923) for the second time and in 1924 for the third time Margarethe Minte (1891–1982).

He died in 1965 at the age of 86 and was buried in the family grave in the cemetery in Widdersberg.

plant

Fonts designed by Ehmcke

  • Ehmcke Antiqua (1908 Flinsch)
  • Ehmcke italic (1910 Flinsch)
  • Ehmcke Fraktur (1912 D. Stempel AG )
  • Ehmcke Rustika (1914 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Schwabacher (1914 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Schwabacher half bold (1915 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Fraktur semi bold (1917 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Mediaeval (1922 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Mediaeval in italics (1923 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Mediaeval half bold (1924 D. Stempel AG)
  • Ehmcke Latin (1925 Ludwig & Mayer )
  • Ehmcke-Latin half bold (1925 Ludwig & Mayer)
  • Ehmcke Brotschrift (1927 Rupprecht press)
  • Ehmcke Elzevir (1927 L. Wagner)
  • Ehmcke Elzevir strong (1930 L. Wagner)
Book design: Agnes Miegel - Balladen und Lieder , Jena, 1910. 2nd edition

Publications

  • Official graphics. Hugo Bruckmann, Munich 1918. (Pamphlets of the Munich Confederation, H. 4.)
  • Ehmcke-Kursiv (= type and ornament booklet XXXIX), Schriftgiesserei Flinsch, Frankfurt 1910, 47 pp.
  • Goals of Scripture Lessons. A contribution to the modern writing movement. Diederichs, Jena 1911, 2nd exp. Edition 1929.
  • Ehmcke-Mediaeval and Mediaeval-Italic. Berlin 1925.
  • The historical development of occidental written forms. Otto Maier, Ravensburg 1927.
  • Personal and factual. Collected essays and works from 25 years. Reckendorf, Berlin 1928.
  • Cultural policy. A commitment and program to rebuild the German way of life. Schauer, Frankfurt am Main 1947.
  • Brochure and dust jacket on the German book of the modern times. Mainz 1951. (Small print by Gutenberg-Ges. 47.)
  • Orderly and valid. Collected essays and works from the last 25 years. Beck, Munich 1955.
  • The Rupprecht-Presse zu Munich (57 prints in 250 copies; a collection of all 57 prints of the press, including the complete series of the press founder FH Ehmcke in the original condition in the colored paper volumes ... as well as in master bindings by Eva Aschoff, Otto Dorfner, Joh Gerbers, Otto Pfaff, W. Schlemmer, Ignatz Wiemeler et al. With an essay by FH Ehmcke Meine Schrifttypen and an appendix with type tables of the typefaces used in the Rupprecht press). Antiquariat Bibermühle AG Heribert Tenschert, Ramsen / Switzerland; Antiquariat Heribert Tenschert, Rotthalmünster 2001.

Buildings and designs

Draft for a row house complex in Neuss, 1912
  • 1904–1906: Manor on the Neumühle estate near Alt-Ruppin
  • 1910: Exhibition rooms for applied arts at the Sonderbund exhibition in Düsseldorf
  • 1912: Housing group Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 22/24/26 in Neuss (under monument protection)
  • 1912: Single-family house in Neuss
  • 1912: House for the writer Herbert Eulenberg in Kaiserswerth , Burgallee 4
  • around 1914: Design for an administration and canteen building for the Hesselberger leather factory in Munich- Biederstein
  • 1922–1924: Landhaus Ehmcke in Widdersberg , Kirchplatz 1 (together with the Munich architect Sigismund Göschel; under monument protection)
  • 1928: Exhibition rooms at the Pressa in Cologne

literature

  • Theo Neteler: Fritz Hellmut Ehmcke and the Insel-Verlag . In: From the second-hand bookshop . December 12, 2016, ISSN  0343-186X , ZDB -ID 517761-3 , p. 186–200 (with an overview of the books published by Insel-Verlag, which FH Ehmcke designed or which he was involved in).
  • Thomas Kraft: Fritz Ehmcke (1878–1965). In: Thomas Kraft (Ed.): Herrsching at the time of Christian Morgenstern. Pictures of cultural life between 1870 and 1920. Herrsching am Ammersee 2006, p. 153.
  • Arnulf Backe, Hedda Backe: The Rupprecht press. A portrait . BBA, Berliner Bibliophilen Abend, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-9805622-9-8 (Ill. Annual edition of the Berliner Bibliophilen Abend; limited edition).
  • FH Ehmcke and his Neuss students H. Cossmann, E. Malzburg, J. Urbach. Catalog Clemens-Sels-Museum Neuss, 1984.
  • Helma Schaefer: Towards the International Book Art Exhibition Leipzig 1977. Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke. In: Paper and Printing , 25th year 1976, general part, p. 73.
  • Ewald Bender: Ehmcke, Fritz Hellmut . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 10 : Dubolon – Erlwein . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1914, p. 391–392 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
  • Irmgard Heidler: FH Ehmcke and Eugen Diederichs. Insight into cooperation and the development of structures. A documentation. In: Marginalien , Issue 218, 2015/2, pp. 3–26.
  • Heidler, Irmgard: Ehmcke in London. Documents and context. In: Marginalia. 225. issue, 2017/2, pp. 52–70.

Web links

Commons : Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiversity: Typographical example of work from 1919/1920  - course materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kunstgewerbeblatt , 11th year 1900, p. #.
  2. ↑ Friendship between Ehmcke and Gauchat
  3. ↑ Marion Ackermann: Colored walls. For the design of the exhibition space from 1880–1930 . Ed .: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich. Edition Minerva, Wolfratshausen 2003, ISBN 3-932353-79-X , p. 82 f .
  4. ↑ Ralf Herrmann: Schriftgeschichten: The Ehmcke-Antiqua, the script with the big long s. In: typografie.info. December 2, 2013, accessed March 31, 2014 .
  5. ↑ General artist lexicon . Volume 32: Ebersbach – Eimbke. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2002, p. 432.
  6. ^ Tomb in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  7. ^ FH Ehmcke: Architecture. In: Das Zelt, magazine of the Ehmcke-Kreis , year 1933, no. 4/5.
personal data
SURNAME Ehmcke, Fritz Helmuth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German graphic artist and typographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohensalza
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1965
Place of death Ariesberg