Gerhard Lang (publisher)

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Gerhard Lang (* 1881 in Maulbronn ; † 1974 in Munich ) was a German bookseller and publisher . At the beginning of the 20th century, Lang had the idea of ​​producing an advent calendar , which he had printed in the F. Reichhold lithographic institute in Munich under the motto “ In the Land of the Christ Child ”. By the end of the 1930s, his publishing house had issued 30 different advent calendars in 40 versions.

Life

Richard Ernst Kepler : In the Land of the Christ Child , Advent calendar with verses by Gerhard Lang, pasted in 1903, consecutive number 101

The son of a Swabian pastor from Maulbronn first completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller. After completing his apprenticeship, he settled in Munich in 1902. Inspired by his mother's self-made Advent calendar, who sewed Wibele , a Hohenlohe meringue pastry , onto cardboard, Gerhard Lang had the idea of ​​making a pre-Christmas cut-out calendar in 1903. Lang's idea was put into practice by Richard Ernst Kepler , and the first Advent calendar was printed using the flat printing process in F. Reichhold's Lithographic Art Institute in Munich. The still windowless Advent calendar consisted of two sheets, a lithographic print with 24 small poems written by Gerhard Lang in boxes and a sheet with 24 matching pictures, which should be cut out and pasted onto the sheet.

After Lang became a partner in the Reichholdschen Kunstanstalt, he focused on the design and printing of Advent calendars. Under the name "Munich Christmas Calendar - In the Land of the Christ Child", he developed the first Advent calendar that was economically successful. In the following two decades, Lang expanded the art printing company into an advent calendar publisher.

Historical commerce, printed by Reichhold & Lang

Gerhard Lang developed further variants of the Advent calendar in the following years - among other things as a Christmas house to be filled with chocolate , from 1920 advent calendar with doors that can be opened, Christmas clocks, Advent trees with attachable angels and the Advent house with windows that can be opened, which are illuminated by the candle placed inside were.

In addition to Advent calendars, Lang had Christmas books , artist postcards , posters , catalogs and letterheads printed by the publishing house . In his art printing company he published Paul Hey , Ernst Platz and Wilhelm Schacht . He was able to win artists like Ludwig Hohlwein to design advertising posters for the art institute.

A shortage of paper after the outbreak of the Second World War , competition and excessive price pressure forced Gerhard Lang to stop printing calendars and close down the publishing house in 1940.

Gerhard Lang lived in Munich until his death. The estate with designs for Advent calendars is owned by folklorist Esther Gajek , who designed exhibitions on the history of Advent calendars .

literature

  • Esther Gajek: Advent calendar: from the beginning to the present. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1984/1992 , ISBN 3-7991-6422-7 .
  • Markus Mergenthaler (ed.): Advent calendar in the course of time (exhibition catalog Knauf Museum , Iphofen), Röll, Dettelbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-89754-279-2 .
  • Tina Peschel (Ed.): Advent Calendar: History and Stories from 100 Years (For the exhibition of the Museum of European Cultures - State Museums in Berlin) Verlag der Kunst, Husum 2009, ISBN 978-3-86530-114-7 .

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Lang  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Advent calendar - a real Swabian. Exhibition in Oberndorf . ( Memento of the original of December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Augsburger Allgemeine , December 6, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.augsburger-allgemeine.de
  2. ^ Esther Gajek: Advent calendar. From the beginning to the present . Munich, 1992, pp. 9-21.
  3. ↑ Manfred Blechschmidt: Christmas customs in the Ore Mountains . Altis-Verlag, Friedrichsthal 2010, ISBN 978-3-910195-60-8 , p. 34f.
  4. ^ Klaus Mergenthaler: Advent calendar through the ages. Dettelbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-89754-279-2 , p. 12ff.
personal data
SURNAME Lang, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and bookseller
DATE OF BIRTH 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Maulbronn
DATE OF DEATH 1974
Place of death Munich