Graphic Design of the Twenties and Thirties by Steven Heller and Louise
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deco españaGraphic design of the twenties and thirties by Steven Heller Chronicle Books and Louise Fili San Francisco This fascinating Steven Heller, introducción 6 compendium of graphic design from Spain a senior art director at the New York Times, of the twenties and thirties encompasses the editor of the American Institute of a wide range of subjects, products, and Graphic Arts’ Journal of Graphic Design, and industries, representing a rich and relatively the director of the School of Visual Arts’ an- política 16 unknown treasure trove of Deco design. nual “Modernism and Eclecticism: History of Graphic Design” symposium, has authored Vibrant and emotional, Spanish Art Deco or coauthored more than fifty books. brings a unique twist to the style of this era. cultura 32 Neither classically refined like French Deco, Louise Fili is a principal of a New York City nor streamlined like American, Spanish Deco design firm and the recipient of numerous shows the influences of its own distinctive prestigious design awards. culture. Here was a highly industrialized Together, they are the authors of Cover country on the cusp of the advertising age, moda 54 Story: The Art of American Magazine Cov- bringing to commercial design its own sense ers, 1900-1950; Deco Type: Stylish Alpha- of style and of the avant-garde. It was also bets from the ‘20s and ‘30s; French Modern: a country in the throes of social strife, and Art Deco Graphic Design; Italian Art Deco: Deco España reveals the power of graphic industria 62 Graphic Design between the Wars; Dutch design used for political as well as commer- Moderne: Graphic Design from de Stijl to cial purposes--notably in the posters created Deco; and Streamline: American Art Deco in the tumultuous days of the Spanish Civil Graphic Design (all from Chronicle Books). farmacia y perfumería 74 War, many of which are reproduced here for the first time. Other books in the Art Deco series include: Deco Type The art of the Spanish Deco era is an intrigu- Dutch Moderne ing historical and design legacy that is virtu- French Modern alimentación y tabacos 88 ally unknown today. Today’s graphic design- Italian Art Deco ers, artists, and lovers of things Iberian will Japanese Modern find in Deco España much to admire as well Streamline viajes 100 as inspire. Front cover: Adapted from “Bombones Riquer,” point-of-purchase display for candy, 1930 106 Back cover: Stamps for Catalan orphan relief, J. Obiols, c. 1937 tipografía Cover design by Louise Fili bibliografía 132 agradecimientos The authors express their deepest gratitude to Jordi Duró, the principal re- searcher for this book, for all the hard work he has done in the United States and Spain assembling the material represented here. Thanks also to Mary Jane Callister, of Louise Fili Ltd., for her design assistance and production expertise. We are indebted to Bill LeBlond, our editor at Chron- icle Books, for his continued support of this series; and to Michael Carabetta, design director, Sarah Putman, editorial assistant, and Julia Flagg, design coor- dinator, at Chronicle Books. For their help in obtaining materials, many thanks to two colleagues in Bar- celona who made this book possible: Emilio Duró, for his tireless work on our behalf and Enric Satué of Enric Satué/Can Pufarré S.L., for his loans, advice, and counsel. Thanks also to Sonia Biancalani and Reyes Zavala for their research in the early stages of the project. In addition, we thank everyone who cooperated in the acquisition process: Jordi Carulla, Postermil S.L., Barcelona; Francesc Ribot, Barcelona; Violeta Valle, Barcelona; Robert Opie, London; Carol Leadenham, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, California; Kurt Thaler, Catherine Bürer, Barbara Meili, and B. Hausman, Platatsammlung Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich; Robert Chisholm, Chisholm Larsson Gallery, New York; Gail Chisholm, Chisholm Gal- lery, New York; George Theophiles, Miscellaneous Man, New Freedom, Penn- sylvania; Phillip Williams, Phillip Williams Gallery, New York: David Sánchez, Club de Directors D’Art, Barcelona; Albert Azuar, Fira de Barcelona; Imma Más, Museu del Llibre i les Arts Grafiques, Barcelona; Ariadna Blanc at Museu Nacional d‘Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; The Collection of the Late Alfons Ser- rahima, Barcelona; Daniel and Pau Giralt-Miracle and Maria Soto, Arxlu Giralt Miracle, Barcelona; Alicia Gómez at Arxlu Històric de la Clutat, Institut Municipal d’Historia, Barcelona; Lluïsa Camarero, Biblioteca General d’Historia d’Art de Barcelona; Carme Carrello and Montserrat Álvarez, Museu del Teatre, Barce- lona; Guillermo Luca de Tena, ABC-Prensa Española S.A., Madrid; Venanclo Ruiz Usón at Espasa-Calpe S.A., Madrid; and Ajuntament de Barcelona. créditos All materials come from private collections with the exception of the following: Plakatsammlung Museum Für Gestaltung Zürich: 18, 19, 20 (lower left, upper and lower right), 21, 26, 27 (top right), 29, 40. Hoover Institution Archive: 17, 20 (upper left), 22, 23 (top left, right, and center), 24, 25, 27 (lower left), 30, 31 (upper right). Enric Satué: 28 (bottom), 34-35, 46 (right), 50 (right), 58 (left and right), 59 (top), 60 (top), 65 (top left), 66 (top), 67, 68, 73 (left), 83 (right), 96, 97 (right), 102, 108, 116, 117; Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya: 51 (left), 53; Chisholm Larsson Gallery: 31 (upper left, lower left, lower right), 41, 52 (top left), 63, 101; Arxlu Giralt Miracle: 86 (top left and top right), 130; Miscellaneous Man: 104; Robert Opie Collection: 94-95 (center). Research assistance by Jordi Duró. Book design by Louise Fili and Mary Jane Callister. Copyright © 1997 by Steven Heller and Louise Fili Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available. ISBN 0-8118-1217-0 Printed in Hong Kong. Distributed in Canda by Raincoast Books, 8680 Cambie Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6P 6M9 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Chronicle Books, 85 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94105 Web Site: www.chronbooks.com introducción 6 política 16 cultura 32 moda 54 industria 62 farmacia y perfumería 74 alimentación y tabacos 88 viajes 100 tipografía 106 bibliografía 132 introducción Art Deco invaded Spain from France in the early 1920s and occupied the Cata- lonian city of Barcelona for almost two decades. Spanish artists learned the French graphic language, combined it with German, English, and Italian accents, and developed a decorative visual dialect that we call Deco España. Barcelona was the birthplace of Spanish Art Deco, but by the mid-1920s, Madrid and Va- lencia also adopted Art Deco as the principal commercial graphic style. Little differentiated the look of Deco España from the French model. Span- ish illustrators and designers, many of whom developed distinctive personal approaches, borrowed elemental forms that were originally published in such foreign advertising trade magazines as Arts et Metiers Graphiques (France) and Gebrauchsgrafik (Germany). In fact, French printing firms and advertising agen- cies virtually colonized the Spanish commercial art market by selling stock ad- vertisements and custom-made posters to Spanish companies. Catalonia, which had long depended on French culture, welcomed these exports by leading French artists such as A.M. Cassandre, Paul Colin, and Jean Carlu. By the late 1920s, Catalonian advertising, book, and magazine design was largely identical to the French style, but Italy eventually exerted influence when the Milan-based Maga Agency opened an affiliate in Madrid and sold the reproduction rights of their leading Italian poster artists, among them Marcello Nizzoli and Leonetto Cappiello. J. Walter Thompson also opened a branch in Madrid to handle its General Motors account and thus contributed an American dialect to the Deco España mix. The term Art Deco was coined in the 1960s, a contraction of Exposition des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, Paris’s 1925 landmark festival of style. In the 1920s and 1930s, Art Moderne, as it was commonly known then, was the first pan-global design style, and it was replete with a vocabulary of interchangeable visual conceits. It was enthusiastically embraced by Europe, Asia, South 1 America, and the United States — almost any industrial nation accessible by air or sea. As a decorative veneer, Deco was applied to architecture, furniture, fash- ion, appliances, and, of course, graphics. Art Deco began in France just prior to World War I, achieved real currency there in the early 1920s, and continued until World War II. It began as a stylistic reaction to Art Nouveau’s floreated madness and ideological Modernism’s purist mania. While Art Nouveau had become too eccentric in its linear hysteria, Purism went to the other extreme by reject- ing ornament entirely. Deco was, therefore, a mediating force, an attempt to be modern while remaining true to bourgeois aesthetic preferences for pleasing decoration. In Europe after World War I, Art Deco was the symbol of both prog- ress and decadence. Art Nouveau’s naturalistic motifs — serpentine tendrils and plant stems — gave way to Art Deco’s geometric patterns and smoother, sleeker lines. While streamlined elegance was Deco’s defining attribute in furniture and fashion, in graphics Deco offered a wider range of possibilities as various historical sources were blended into a unique melody of au courant mannerisms. Deco’s initial, or neo-classical, phase during the 1920s was characterized by a synthesis of an- cient forms, stylized quotations from Mayan, Egyptian, and Asian sources that were made to be contemporary. The latter, or modernistic, phase, which lasted throughout the 1930s, borrowed European avant-garde influences, notably from Cubism, Purism, and Orphism, that imbued the style with the rectilinear sensi- bility of L'Esprit nouveau. Art Deco was marketplace modernity, not avant-gardism in the anti-canonical sense of Futurism, de Stijl, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, and Dada.