Max Bittrof
Max Bittrof (born November 27, 1890 in Frankfurt (Oder) ; † May 15, 1972 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German graphic designer, type designer and postage stamp artist.
career path
After training as a lithographer , Bittrof studied at the arts and crafts schools in Krefeld and Elberfeld . From 1919 he worked in Frankfurt am Main, where he worked as a freelance graphic designer. In 1923 he was a co-founder of the Association of German Commercial Graphics (BDG). His customers in the 1920s included the Frankfurt cigarette factory Nestor Gianaclis , the car brand Opel and Telefonbau & Normalzeit, Frankfurt am Main (until 1968). In 1933 he designed the Element font for the Bauersche Gießerei (→ list of fonts ).
In 1948 he designed banknotes for the Bank Deutscher Länder ( 5, 50 and 100 D-Marks ). His 5 D-Mark bill sparked a controversy about morality and aesthetics, as Bittrof had chosen a bare-breasted Europa on the bull as the motif . The guilloche lines, which were supposed to protect against forgery, were rated by critics as "a tangle of lines in Picasso style". Bittrof justified himself: “This structure shows the courage to create something new under the sign of the streamline . The draft of the score corresponds to my point of view as an artist, even if I was constrained by banking regulations. It is everyone's right to disagree on artistic matters. "
In 1960 he designed a series of replacement banknotes, the Bittrof series , for the Deutsche Bundesbank , after his design for the main series was not shortlisted.
Since 1949 Bittrof has also designed postage stamps , such as the Heuss stamps .
Later he was a consultant for Telefonbau und Normalzeit . From 1957 he was a teacher of commercial graphics at the Westend Art School in Frankfurt.
The use of the Burmester curve template was typical of Max Bittrof's work .
literature
- Frithjof Dahl : Max Bittrof . In: Nutzgraphik 5, Heft 12, 1928, pp. 3-18.
- Kurt Zentner (Ed.): Rise from Nowhere, Germany from 1945–1953 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1954, Volume 2, p. 112
- Andreas Schwarz: Design, graphic design, advertising . In: The Federal Republic of Germany . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983, Vol. 3 Culture, p. 265
- Friedl Friedl: Max Bittrof . In: Eye Magazine 9/1993
Web links
- Bittrof at Markenschätze.de
- Report on the D-Mark reserve series at Spiegel One Day
- Technical articles on various reserve series
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bittrof, max |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German graphic designer, type designer and postage stamp artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 27, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Frankfurt (Oder) |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 15, 1972 |
| Place of death | Frankfurt am Main |