Metz brothers

Villa Metz , the former headquarters of the Metz Brothers Publishing House (2016)

The postcard publisher Gebrüder Metz or mostly abbreviated Gebr. Metz in Tübingen was a company founded in 1828 that produced and sold postcards with national motifs. More recently, books (especially illustrated books and guides) have also been published. At times the publishing house was one of the largest publishers of these materials in all of Germany.

Products

Postcard from Esslingen am Neckar by the Metz brothers (around 1900)

The company brought out illustrated books, brochures, guides and many postcards. The early Metz cards were produced by the Garte printing company and the CG Röder sheet music printing company in Leipzig . From 1890 the demand for postcards grew enormously, and the brothers Heinrich and Gustav Metz in Tübingen started producing their own postcards after taking over their father's business in 1896.

The range mainly included postcards of cities, monasteries, palaces, castles, streets, but also individual buildings such as hotels, restaurants, post offices and train stations. In addition, there were portraits and photos of traditional costumes and of festivals, exhibitions, events and disasters.

Photography, retouching and graphics

The company employed photographers who specialize in postcard motifs and who traveled to Europe on precisely defined routes. It even had a turntable ladder reminiscent of a fire brigade ladder to provide the best possible perspectives.

Most of the time, the maps do not reflect reality completely, because Metz made intensive use of the possibility of retouching and collage . The views of reality were mostly artistically processed, alienated and aestheticized. Elaborately decorated passe-partouts embedded the souvenir pictures in fairytale-like frames, hand-colored moonlight scenes showed the respective cityscape in unreal light.

Branch in Basel

The Tübinger Kunstverlag opened a branch at Clarastrasse 25 in Basel in 1897 , which was managed by Gustav Metz. The first litho map from Metz in Basel can be documented as early as 1897 . As the space soon became too scarce, the company moved to Reichensteinerstrasse 18 in 1898, where Gustav Metz set up a postcard and postcard publishing company in the backyard. The company did not produce the cards itself, but mostly obtained them from Tübingen and ran a flourishing art publishing company. In 1902, Gustav Metz was able to buy the building at Reichensteinerstrasse 18 from the builder D. Kessler, who had built the representative house with a remarkable facade in 1895.

Gustav Metz spun off the branch in Basel from the Tübingen company and continued to manage it under the name "Gustav Metz, formerly Gebr. Metz, Basel". In 1907 the art publisher was no longer registered under the name "Gebr. Metz", but the sole owner was Gustav Metz. Gustav Metz not only published Swiss motifs, but also created postcards of Cameroon on behalf of the Basel Mission .

Gustav Metz died in 1923, and the art publishing house in Basel was continued by his widow Elisabeth Metz-Vogt until 1926. In 1926 the art publishing house was bought by Georg Monbaron and continued in the same place until 1935. Subsequently, Monbaron moved the art publishing house to Bartensheimerstrasse 57, where he continued to work until 1942. The name "Kunstverlagsanstalt, formerly Widow G.Metz" was continued in the company name, which indicates that the G. Metz company had a very good name. After 1942 the company went out, probably for reasons of war and age.

bankruptcy

In 1988 the Metz brothers went bankrupt due to reduced demand. The publishing house is continued by an Italian company and is still based near Tübingen.

The former publishing house, the Villa Metz , will be used after renovation by the Protestant church , a debt counseling service and as a family education center.

estate

The extensive archive with many thousands of photos (around 270,000 glass plates - negatives ) as well as their rights of use were bought in 1991 by the House of History Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart . There the glass plates are successively inventoried and digitized. In November 2019, a first selection was put online on the museum portal Museum Digital Baden-Württemberg . In addition, parts of the historical photographs and postcards are kept in the Tübingen city archive.