Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse

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Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse (born January 2, 1918 in Schwerin ; † December 13, 2019 in Darmstadt ) was an internationally known German typographer and bookbinder . She was married to Hermann Zapf from 1951 until his death in 2015 .

Life and accomplishments

Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse completed an apprenticeship as a bookbinder, her journeyman years 1937–1940 in Weimar with Otto Dorfner and her master craftsman examination in 1940. She then worked in a Berlin handbook. During her apprenticeship, she taught herself to write from books by Edward Johnston and Rudolf Koch . In 1941 she took writing lessons with Johannes Boehland at the master school for graphic arts in Berlin.

In 1946 she went to Frankfurt am Main to the renowned Bauersche Foundry , from 1946 to 1954 she taught typeface at the Städelschule ; at the same time (1946–1955) she ran her own bookbinding workshop in Frankfurt. She designed numerous typefaces for Stempel , Berthold and URW , but also for clients from the USA such as Hallmark Cards in Kansas City or Bitstream in Cambridge. Her first typeface, Hesse Antiqua, cut by hand in brass , was not published; it only became known in its field through the publication of Diotima .

In 1951 she married the typographer Hermann Zapf and temporarily gave up her career. But she remained active and designed covers for the Bonn book community and a font for Hallmark Cards , a US company.

It was not until the 1980s that she created new font designs for German and American type houses. In 1984 she and her husband received one of the first Macintosh PCs from Apple for free.

Your most successful font Diotima was u. a. by the car manufacturer Opel and is still used today by the writing instrument manufacturer Faber-Castell .

Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse became better known in the USA than in Germany and was awarded the Frederic W. Goudy Award there in 1991, which is comparable to the German Gutenberg Prize and is considered the highest American award in the field of writing and book art. 2001 her and her husband was in honor of the Zapfest in San Francisco aligned and 2nd September from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to Hermann and Gudrun Zapf Day proclaimed.

Since 1993 she has been a member of the Klingspor Offenbach writing workshop (honorary member since April 2013). From 1952 to 2004, her designs were exhibited at home and abroad. The last exhibition so far took place in 2010 in the archives of the Klingspor Offenbach writing workshop. Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse lived in Darmstadt since 1972 .

For its centenary on January 2, 2018, Monotype released a digital version of its first typeface, the Hesse Antiqua.

On December 20, 2019, Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse was buried at the old cemetery in Darmstadt next to her husband, who died in 2015 (grave number: II P 44).

Fonts

Fonts of Diotima and Diotima in italics; Linotype Library GmbH
  • Hesse Antiqua, 1947 (for Bauer, published by Monotype in 2018)
  • Diotima, 1952/1953 (for stamp)
  • Emerald, 1953 (for stamp)
  • Ariadne, 1954 (for stamp)
  • Shakespeare, 1968 (for Hallmark)
  • Carmina, 1986 (for Bitstream)
  • Nofret, 1986 (for Berthold)
  • Alcuin, 1991 (for URW)
  • Christiana, 1991 (for Berthold)
  • Colombine, 1991 (for URW)

Exhibitions and honors (selection)

  • 1948: Städel Art Academy , Frankfurt a. M.
  • 1952: Grafiska Institutet, Stockholm (with Hermann Zapf)
  • 1970: Exhibition, Klingspor Museum, Offenbach
  • 1985: Exhibition, ITC Center, New York
  • 1991: Frederic W. Goudy Award, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
  • 1998: Hessian State and University Library, Darmstadt
  • 2001: Exhibition Calligraphic Type Design in the Digital Age: An Exhibition in Honor of the Contributions of Hermann & Gudrun Zapf , San Francisco Public Library
  • 2001: Mills College , Oakland, Canada
  • 2016: Art Prize of the Ike and Berthold Roland Foundation (with Hermann Zapf posthumously)

literature

  • Gerda Breuer , Julia Meer (Ed.): Women in Graphic Design. Jovis, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86859-153-8 , pp. 189, 591.
  • Paul Hayden Duensing: Diotima of Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Farnham 1989.
  • Rei Gesing with Gudrun Zapf von Hesse: The wisdom of 100-year-olds - 7 questions for the oldest people in Germany. With a foreword by Simone Rethel-Heesters. (= MonoLit. Volume 1) Solibro Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-96079-061-7 . Interview with Gudrun Zapf von Hesse on pages 46–49, chapter headings in the book are set in a digital font designed by Gudrun Zapf von Hesse, the "Hesse Antiqua".
  • Hessian State Library Darmstadt (Ed.): Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Exhibition catalog. Darmstadt 1998.
  • Neil MacMillan: AZ of Type Designers. New Haven 2006.
  • Silvia Werfel: Elegance and precision. A life for craft and art - Gudrun Zapf von Hesse. A portrait. In: bindereport, vol. 129, 2016-8, pp. 42–45
  • Andreas Weber: Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse - unobtrusive perfection. Homburg (Saar) 2019. In: Catalog for the exhibition One Century - Two Type Artists. Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse, Helmut Matheis. Edited by the Stiftung Schriftkultur e. VS 8-11.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinand P. Ulrich: Gudrun Zapf von Hesse: Modern, not fashionable . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 19, 2019, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 19, 2019]).
  2. ↑ http://www.schreibwerkstatt-klingspor.de/index.php/lebendiges-archiv/vitae/34-gudrun-zapf , Vitae Zapf-von Hesse, accessed on April 15, 2015
  3. ↑ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/zum-tod-der-typographin-gudrun-zapf-von-hesse-16542193.html , December 19, 2019, accessed on February 4, 2020
  4. ↑ https://guildofbookworkers.org/sites/guildofbookworkers.org/files/gbwlist/2001/08/msg00010.html Zapfest on guildofbookworkers.org, accessed April 15, 2015
  5. ↑ http://creativepro.com/dot-font-the-other-zapf/ dot-font: The Other Zapf, accessed on April 15, 2015
  6. ↑ http://www.schreibwerkstatt-klingspor.de/index.php/lebendiges-archiv/vitae/34-gudrun-zapf Vitae Zapf-von Hesse, accessed on April 15, 2015
  7. ↑ https://www.monotype.com/de/ressourcen/artikel/hesse-antiqua-zum-100-geburtstag/ accessed on December 19, 2018
  8. ↑ Darmstädter Echo, Friday, December 20, 2019, p. 13.
  9. ↑ [1]
personal data
SURNAME Zapf-von Hesse, Gudrun
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German typographer and bookbinder
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwerin
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 2019
Place of death Darmstadt