Peter A. Demeter

Peter Aoram Demeter (born January 10, 1875 in Újboksánbánya ( German:  Deutsch-Bogsan ), Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary ; † May 23, 1939 in Berlin ) was a German bookbinder , typographer and publisher . As the head of various binderies, he made an important contribution to the book art movement with his technically and artistically demanding bindings . The surname Demeter is considered a pseudonym, his real family name was probably Aoram.

life and work

Peter A. Demeter was a trained printer , but drew attention to himself early on with his high-quality hand bindings. He worked in Vienna for several years before moving to the book art city of Leipzig around 1910 and opening his own workshop. From 1912 he is listed here as a member of the Deutscher Werkbund . On the recommendation of Julius Meier-Graefe , in 1911 he was appointed head of the bookbindery of the Bremer Presse . At the beginning of 1914 Frieda Thiersch took over the management of the Bremen bindery , and Demeter became head of the handbinding department of the Leipzig large bookbindery Hübel & Denck , whose owner Felix Hübel had learned from Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson in the Doves Bindery and now the book-artistic suggestions that he had had received there, wanted to implement in his own company. The bindings of the handbinding department created under Demeter's direction, including a facsimile edition of the Gutenberg Bible bound according to Demeter's design , met with applause from the specialist press and the public at Bugra 1914.

As a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , Demeter was drafted into the Austrian army as a soldier during the First World War . After the war, at the suggestion of Heinrich Tessenow , Demeter opened a bookbinding workshop in the garden city of Hellerau near Dresden, in the direct vicinity of the Deutsche Werkstätten . There began a close collaboration with the Austrian printer, publisher and translator Jakob Hegner, who had been running the Hellerauer Verlag here since 1913 and the Hellerau printing company since 1918 . When Hegner joined the Avalun publishing house in Vienna at the beginning of the 1920s and initially published the very successful bibliophile series of Avalun prints together with Julius Brüll , Demeter was responsible for many of the high-quality hand bindings, which in the series were highly regarded among the bibliophile elite of Time helped. In addition to the Avalun publishing house, Demeter mainly worked for the publishing houses of Kurt Wolff and Georg Müller , whose limited special editions he put in handcrafted covers. In addition, Demeter created various fonts in the early 1920s that were cut, cast and published by Dresdener Schriftguss AG.

As a workshop manager, Demeter was known for his high standards in terms of the exact, technically perfect execution of all bindings, which he achieved regardless of time and labor costs. He made all the artistic designs himself, but did not work as a bookbinder in the company. He made his own hand bindings for private collections, including Willy Wiegand .

Officina Bodoni

In 1922 and 1923 P. A. Demeter supported the printer Giovanni Mardersteig in setting up his private press, the Officina Bodoni in Montagnola , Switzerland , and produced the first bindings together with Mardersteig. The press was active until 1977 and is one of the most successful book-making ventures of all time.

P. A. Demeter was also active as a journalist and wrote articles for various specialist journals. In 1928 he founded his own publishing house under his own name, Demeter Verlag, Hellerau . The publishing focus was on book cover history and handicraft books. His two-volume history of book printing , for which he was able to win over the well-known bibliophile and publicist G. A. E. Bogeng as an author, received greater attention . When the economic and cultural environment for book artistic activities collapsed at the beginning of the Nazi era , P. A. Demeter also came under increasing economic pressure, which in 1932 led to a complete financial collapse. Peter A. Demeter spent his last years in Berlin, where he ran a bookbinding business at Kurfürstenstrasse 146 from 1933 and where he died on May 23, 1939.

Fonts

• Pearled Fournier
• Demeter
• Dutch
• Light Dutch

literature

• Hermann Vogel: Peter A. Demeter, the manual binder and real book lover in: Börsenblatt for the German book trade. Frankfurt / Main 1969, Vol. 25, No. 61.
• Klaus-Peter Arnold: From sofa cushions to urban planning. The history of the German workshops and the garden city of Hellerau. Verlag der Kunst, 1993.
• Rudolph Vierhaus (ed.): Peter A. Demeter in: Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (DBE) , 2nd edition, Munich, K. G. Saur 2005.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rudolf Adolph: Rudolf Alexander Schröder in: Bibliophile Profile . Aschaffenburg 1958, Volume 1, p. 64
2. ↑ Paul Kersten: The parchment volume of Frieda Thiersch. In: Onion Fish , Volume XIV (1922) Issue 1 - 3, pp. 14 ff.
3. ^ Charles Holmes (ed.): The Art Of The Book. A Review of Some Recent European and American Work in Typography, Page Decoration & Binding. The Studio, Ltd., London, Paris, New York MCMXIV (1914).
4. ↑ Festschrift Hübel & Denck: 1875–1925. Leipzig, Hübel & Denck 1925
5. ↑ Peter A. Demeter in: Rudolph Vierhaus (ed.), Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (DBE) , 2nd edition, Munich, K. G. Saur 2005. p. 547
6. ^ Klaus-Peter Arnold: From sofa cushions to urban planning. The history of the German workshops and the garden city of Hellerau. Verlag der Kunst, 1993. Ss. 369/70.
7. ^ Giovanni Mardersteig: The Officina Bodoni. The work of a hand press. 1923-1977. Edited and with an introduction by Hans Schmoller. Maximilian Society, Hamburg 1979.
8. ↑ G. A. E. Bogeng: History of book printing , Demeter Verlag, Bd. 1 Hellerau 1930; Vol. 2 Hellerau 1935; Vol. 3 Leipzig 1941