George Salter

George Salter (born Georg Salter ; born October 5, 1897 in Bremen , † October 31, 1967 in New York ) was an initially German, from 1940 an American commercial artist and set designer. He revolutionized the cover design for books. His design for Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz became world-famous .

Life

Georg Salter was born to a Hamburg musician. His parents had converted from Judaism to the Protestant faith in the year he was born . He moved to Berlin with his parents and three siblings . In 1913 he was confirmed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and in 1916 passed the Abitur at the Werner Siemens Realgymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg .

After military service in World War I , he studied at the arts and crafts school in Berlin-Charlottenburg . In 1921 he became a set designer at the Prussian State Opera , moved to the Berlin Volksoper in 1923 and to the United Stadttheater Barmen-Elberfeld in 1925 , where he designed around 100 sets.

In 1927 he returned to Berlin and initially worked as the chief graphic artist for the publishing house Die Schmiede (founded by his brother Julius), for which he had worked since 1923 when he designed the cover for the Lenin biography by Henri Guilbeaux , and its editions an unmistakable appearance. After the bankruptcy of this ambitious company, he designed around 350 bindings for a total of 33 publishers by 1934, including the dust jackets for Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), Ernst Toller's Fire from the Kesseln (1930) and Peter de Mendelssohn's Paris above me (1931). In 1931 he became head of the department for commercial graphics at the higher graphic technical school in Berlin, a position which he had to give up after the Nazis handed over power in 1933.

Salter moved to Baden-Baden . In November 1934 he emigrated to the USA and settled in New York City, where immediately after his arrival he began to make book covers for US publishers. He designed u. a. the covers for Carl Zuckmayer's The Moons Ride Over (1937) and William Shirer's Berlin Diary (1941). In 1939 he took over the management of the graphics department of Mercury Publications and designed 185 book covers and about 30 magazine titles in the following decade.

In 1937 he received a teaching position at the New York Cooper Union School of Art . He taught typography and calligraphy there until his death . In 1940 he became a US citizen .

Salter was married to Agnes O'Shea and had one daughter, Janet.

literature

• Eva Chrambach:  Salter, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 397 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Jürgen Holstein: Georg Salter. Book covers and dust jackets from the Berlin period 1922–1934. [With a contribution to typography for Georg Salter by Peter Nils Dorén] . Self-published by Jürgen Holstein, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-00-010772-X .
• Thomas S. Hansen: Classic Book Jackets. The Design Legacy of George Salter . Princeton Architectural Press, New York: 2005
• Claire Hoertz Badaracco: Georg Salter's Book Jacket Designs: 1925-1940 . In: Design Issues . 17: 3 17 (2001) 3, pp. 40-48
• George Salter and his Work: Calligraphy, Book Jackets, Book Design. A retrospective exhibition. October 26 through January 15, 1981 . UCLA Research Library, Los Angeles, California 1981
• Salter, George , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 1014f.

Web links

• Literature by and about George Salter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Reminder website for George Salter (de, en)
• Blog about George Salter and contemporaries with numerous images of his work

Individual evidence

1. ^ German biography , q. v.
2. ↑ Jürgen Holstein: Georg Salter. Book covers and dust jackets from the Berlin period 1922–1934, 2003, p. 15