Werner von Axster-Heudtlass: Illustration Political, and Not

This is an advertisement for Eagle artistic silks, 1925.

And here is another piece by Werner von Axster-Heudtlass (1898-1949). My German was never good and now it's pretty rusty, but I translate the top slogan as "Hate and Destroy our Enemies" and the bottom one as "Freedom, Justice and Bread (for) our People." The "enemies" are labeled Judaism (in a secular sense, "Jewdom"), Bolshevism, Plutocracy and Capitalism.

I don't have a date for this Hitler Youth poster, but guess from the content that it was created before Hitler assumed power, probably sometime between 1927 and 1933.

What little is known about Axster-Heudtlass can be found here, though I suspect researchers in Germany might have dug out more. The link notes that he and his wife Maria (no dates) probably collaborated on some of the Axster-Heudtlass works.

I recently posted about Ludwig Hohlwein, a top-notch advertising illustrator who also created posters supporting the Nazi regime.  Hohlwein, as I noted in the post, did posters that were supportive in a positive sense and he steered clear of negative subjects.  This was not the case for Axster-Heudtlass who, in the poster above, depicts enemies that are evil serpents that must suffer destruction.

Below are examples of normal commercial art by Axster-Heundtlass along with one more Nazi propaganda piece.

"Merry Germany"

Steinway Pianos

Railway guide cover - 1936

Advertising the port city of Stettin (now in Poland) - 1934

This is another poster or flyer supporting the Nazi regime, probably from 1944-45. It's more difficult to translate than the one above, but goes something like this: "We listen to you, Leader. The future can bring us nothing save victory. [This next phrase is the tricky bit: help me, please, if it needs fixing] And if questioned as to its basis, we state: Because the Lord God gave us the Leader." "Leader" being the reference Hitler bestowed on himself -- Führer in German.

I am not fond of what might be called "political art," the political message almost always draining whatever artistic merit might have been incorporated in the work. Some artists do political art strictly to bring needed income, as if the assignment were just another form of advertising that required illustration. Others are in favor of the cause, as we see above. Axster-Heudtlass did some nice commercial work, but the Nazi pieces are clearly inferior. How much of this artistic damage was his own doing and how much might have been owed to the taste of clients is probably impossible to judge at this late date.

Marcello Dudovich: Italian Poster Ace

Marcello Dudovich (1878-1962), despite his Slavic last name, was Italian, having been born in Trieste. But then, Trieste sits next to the South Slav region formerly known as Yugoslavia, which explains his heritage.

For the first 40 years or so of the 20th Century Dudovich reigned as Italy's foremost poster artist. Reproductions of some of those posters can be found today.

Like his more famous German contemporary Ludwig Hohlwein, Dudovich made use of solid representational bases from which design-related simplifications or elaborations could be created to provide intended visual impacts. Unlike Hohlwein who began his career as an architect, Dudovich had a fair amount of formal art training. Moreover, his style evolved over time, becoming more simplified in the 1930s in line with fashions in illustration and fine art.

A detailed biography can be found here on a Web page devoted to Dudovich. The site includes a good number of examples of his art. Below are works shown there and found elsewhere on the Internet.

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Poster from 1905.

This was for a Naples store, 1907.

Dudovich was a contributor to several magazines, including the famous German Simplicissimus. The illustration shown here is from 1913. Due to the Great War and Italy's eventual participation on the side of the Allies, Dudovich had to terminate his relationship with the publication.

Much of Dudovich's work was related to fashion.

There were several variations of this Martini & Rossi poster. The artwork is the same, but captions vary.

This ad is for a hand-held, probably 8mm, movie camera. High-tech in 1923.

This seems to be a magazine cover. Motoring magazines in Europe often used to feature cover art advertising, so here we find a Fiat ad in 1930.

Dudovich also created posers for Fiat. This 1934 example is perhaps his best-known.

Another 1930s poster, this for cigarettes.

Our final example is a liquor ad from around 1940, to judge by the subject's hair style.

Ludwig Hohlwein: Poster Illustration Master

Ludwig Hohlwein (1874-1949) in my opinion was one of the greatest poster illustrators, ever. He also was one of the better poster designers of the first half of the 20th century, though in this respect he was outshone by the likes of A.M. Cassandre and others.

Hohlwein had a distinctive style, usually using the notoriously difficult (for me, anyway) watercolor medium often in flat, overlapping areas to build up images.

The quality of his work was such that his political leanings are usually ignored or downplayed by writers and critics. Critics are more likely to bring up the politics of leftist German artists such as George Grosz and John Heartfield, though seldom in a negative way. With Hohlwein, negativity would be easy to introduce, yet his work was so good that, like the case of fashion designer Coco Chanel, his views and activities are viewed with a blind eye. For example, this politically liberal artist/blogger simply enthuses about how good an artist Hohlwein was.

And what was Hohlwein's political dark side? Well, you see, he was a Nazi. A member of the party once Hitler took over Germany in 1933. Before that, he created posters in support of the Kaiser's war effort. After the Great War he did posters supporting the anti-leftist Stahlhelm (steel helmet) paramilitary organization. However, it should be noted that his political posters were "positive" in that they supported the regime without negative depictions of the regime's enemies. In other words, so far as I know, Hohlwein never created an antisemitic poster. Grosz and Heartfield, on the other hand, went to great lengths to do negative portrayals of what they despised rather than showing the presumed positive joys of a risen proletariat.

The most detailed biographical information I could find on the Web is here. And his German Wikipedia entry mentions that he was forbidden to pursue his profession until February 1946, about nine months after Germany's defeat in World War 2. So presumably the Allies noted his general support of the Hitler regime, but could find no direct connection to its negative deeds.

I begin the examples of Hohlwein's work, below, with a few of his regime-supporting works to show what they looked like. Then I include a number of the posters he made for advertisers, these being what gained him his fame.

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This encourages youth to join the Stahlhelm youth organization.

Advertising the Union of German Maidens, an arm of the Hitler Youth.

The lower red caption asserts "We are those who guarantee the future."

A 1912 poster for Audi automobiles. Around this time Hohlwein included large patterned areas in some of his posters.  Also note the Coles Phillips color dropout style.

Advertising gentlemens' clothing. Note Hohlwein's artistic license where the two men are lighted from opposite directions.

A coffee ad.

One of Hohlwein's best-known posters, this for Casanova cigarettes. Note the way the woman's face is rendered.

For a fashion event.

High-fashion perfume.

"Summer in Germany means splendid holidays!"

Advertising sport hats.

Urging women to wear jewelry.

Claude Buckle's Railway Posters

Claude Henry Buckle (1905–1973) trained in architecture, spent a number of years creating travel poster art for British railway companies, and in his final years became a skilled water color painter. Biographical information is here.

Thanks to his work as an architectural delineator, Buckle was able to paint convincing scenes of towns, cities and noted structures. Below are examples of posters containing his illustrations. Several scenes are familiar, whetting my desire to head for England and Wales to visit the rest.

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A.M. Cassandre, Master of the Poster ... and More

Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron (1901 - 1968), who was born of French parents in Kharkov and died by his own hand in Paris, is known to the commercial art world by his professional pseudonym, A.M. Cassandre. His Wikipedia entry is here, and a more detailed description of his professional work is here.

Cassandre's heyday was from the mid-1920s through the 1930s. His poster and magazine cover illustration style was Moderne with occasional touches of surrealism; it was highly regarded at the time and respected today. Little question that he was one of the best at his trade. Besides that, he designed types faces and later in his career was involved in theater work.

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Étoile du Nord - 1927

Nord Express - 1927

Normandie - 1935
Above are three of his most famous travel posters.

Poster for Dubonnet
He did a long series of posters for Dubonnet.

Bifur typeface - 1929

Peignot typeface - 1937
Examples of two of his typeface designs.

Harper's Bazaar cover - September 1937

Harper's Bazaar cover - November, 1937
Some fashion magazine covers.

Brangwyn's Railroad Posters

Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) is perhaps best remembered for his murals. He also did easel paintings and posters, many of the latter in support of Britain's effort in the Great War.

But that was not all. For a while in the 1920s he created a few posters for what became the London and North Eastern Railway, a major line that ran trains from London into Scotland along a route near the eastern coast of the island. (The London, Midland and Scottish followed a more westerly path north, while the Great Western and Southern railroads served other locations.)

At the time Brangwyn created the designs shown below, a trend toward simplified images was getting underway. Perhaps because Brangwyn was probably incapable of delivering a simplified image, his career in railroad poster making was comparatively brief.

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Durham

Firth of Forth Bridge

Scotland

Over the Nidd near Harrogate