Paul Renner

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Paul Renner (born August 9, 1878 in Wernigerode ; † April 25, 1956 in Hödingen ; full name: Paul Friedrich August Renner ) was a German typographer , graphic designer and author and is best known for his Futura font .

Paul Renner, around 1927

Life

Professional background

Paul Renner studied painting at the art academies in Berlin, Munich ( Debschitz School) and Karlsruhe. He dealt intensively with typography for the first time from 1907 as part of his collaboration with the Munich publisher Georg Müller . Together with Emil Preetorius (1883–1973) he founded the Munich Book Trade School in 1911, school for illustration and book trade in Munich, which in 1914 was combined with the Debschitz School to form the Munich training workshops. Renner called Maria Gundrum to the school as a teacher and helped her to build an existence in Munich.

In 1910 Renner was appointed to the German Werkbund . From 1925 to 1926 he taught advertising graphics and typography at the Frankfurt Art School , where he worked for the New Frankfurt . Paul Renner was lured away from Frankfurt when he was offered the management of the “Master School for Germany's Book Printers” in Munich in 1927.

The training center, which has been renamed the “Academy for the Graphic Arts” since 1956, is one of the forerunners of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, which was founded in 1971 . Renner kept returning to Frankfurt for lectures and events. He received great recognition for his work as a teacher and pedagogue in both Frankfurt and Munich, documented in numerous letters from former students that are in Paul Renner's estate in the Bavarian State Library .

Typographic works

Source fonts
Futura by Paul Renner

In the 1920s, the development of typography experienced new impulses and a number of geometric fonts were created . One of the best known is the sans serif Futura , i.e. unbroken fonts without foot marks. Over the decades, various die cutters have created many variations of it. The spectrum ranges from lean cuts to extra fat versions. None of these fonts comes close to the meaning of the Futura developed by Renner. In 1928, after years of preparatory work, Renner presented his “Futura” font, Latin for “the future”. It was based on ancient inscriptions and met the requirements of the new typography coined by the Bauhaus .

  • Futura (1928)
  • Plak (1928)
  • Futura fat (1929)
  • Futura lean (1932)
  • Ballad (1938)
  • Renner Antiqua (1939)
  • Futura steep (1953–1954)

Paul Renner from the “Bauerschen Gießerei” in Frankfurt, where Georg Hartmann and Heinrich Jost's fonts were produced and marketed, found support and support in the development and introduction of the new font . Among other things, Renner worked for the bookbindery Hübel und Denck .

Works in the estate

Renner published his first major theoretical work on "Typography as Art" in 1922. This was followed in 1930 by the treatise on "Mechanized Graphics", and in 1939 "Renner Antiqua" and his main work "The Art of Typography" appeared. In the same year he published “Order and Harmony of Colors: A Color Theory for Artists and Craftsmen”, his last technical work was about “The Secret of Representation”, and in 1947 the text about “The Modern Book”. The last typeface he presented was "Steile Futura" in 1952. Renner's writings are being published in new editions and are still used in teaching and teaching. In 1937 an exhibition of his paintings was held. Renner's estate has been in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek since 2017, including extensive correspondence, numerous signed books, paintings, drawings, speech manuscripts and preparatory work on his theoretical works.

Resistance to National Socialism

On November 30, 1926, Renner spoke in the Munich Tonhalle after the brothers Thomas and Heinrich Mann about the “battle for Munich as the cultural capital”. At the event, writers Leo Weismantel , Walter Courvoisier and the painter Willi Geiger , among others, turned against the National Socialist cultural policy. At the end of 1932 he published his anti-National Socialist polemic with the title “ Kulturbolshevismus ?” In the Eugen Rentsch Verlag in Zurich , which had already not found a publisher in Germany and was heavily attacked in the NSDAP central organ Völkischer Beobachter . In April 1933, Renner was arrested by the Nazis and dismissed from office. He emigrated to Switzerland and lived in seclusion as a painter in Hödingen.

Honors

On March 24, 2011, the city council of Wernigerode decided to name a street in what is now the commercial and industrial area "Smatvelde" after Paul Renner.

Fonts

  • Typography as art. Munich 1922.
  • Mechanized graphics. Font, type, photo, film, color. Berlin 1930.
  • Cultural Bolshevism? Zurich 1932. (as reprint : Stroemfeld-Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-87877-829-5 )
  • The art of typography. Berlin 1939. (as reprint : Augsburg 2003, ISBN 3-87512-414-6 )
  • The modern book. Lindau 1946.
  • Order and harmony of colors. A color theory for artists and craftsmen. Ravensburg 1947.
  • From the hand and publisher binding . Lindau 1948
  • On the secret of representation. Frankfurt 1955.
  • The artist in the mechanized world . Munich 1977

literature

  • Paul Renner: Die Kunst der Typographie In: Architektur und Kunst Vol. 27, Issue 7, 1940, p. 24.
  • Philipp Luidl (Hrsg.): Paul Renner: an annual edition of the Typographische Gesellschaft München . Munich 1978.
  • Christopher Burke: Paul Renner: the art of typography. Hyphen Press, London 1998.
  • Paul Renner August 9, 1878 - April 25, 1956: for the 125th birthday of the creator of the Futura . Wernigerode 2003.
  • Eva Chrambach:  Renner, Paul Friedrich August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , pp. 434-436 ( digitized version ).
  • Waldemar Fromm / Laura Mokrohs (eds.): The creator of the Futura. The book designer, typographer and painter Paul Renner , Munich: Volk 2019, ISBN 978-3-86222-310-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Rahel Bacher, Maximilian Schreiber: Library magazine 3/18 . Ed .: Klaus Ceynowa, Barbara Schneider-Kempf . Kern GmbH, Bexbach, 2018, ISSN  1861-8375 , p. 6 .
  2. ^ Dorothea Roth: Paul Renner and Maria Gundrum. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Vol. 96, 1966, p. 174. Retrieved on November 12, 2019 .
  3. ^ Ann Katrin Bäumler: Typography in Munich. historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de, accessed on September 25, 2019 .
  4. ^ A b Rahel Bacher, Maximilian Schreiber: Library magazine 3/18 . Ed .: Klaus Ceynowa, Barbara Schneider-Kempf. Kern GmbH, Bexbach, 2018, ISSN  1861-8375 , p. 5 .
  5. ^ Eva Chrambach: Renner, Paul Friedrich August , Neue Deutsche Biographie 21/2003, pp. 434–436
  6. ^ Rahel Bacher, Maximilian Schreiber: Library magazine 3/18 . Ed .: Klaus Ceynowa, Barbara Schneider-Kempf. Kern GmbH, Bexbach, 2018, ISSN  1861-8375 , p. 9 .
  7. ^ Volksstimme Magdeburg: New street names are reminiscent of important children of the city. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Paul Renner  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Renner, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Renner, Paul Friedrich August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German typographer, graphic designer and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Wernigerode
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1956
Place of death Hödingen