Die Kunst des Buchumschlages

Beskrivning

Verlag Gerd Hatjes, Stuttgart. 1954. First German edition. 34 pp. text and 74 pp illustrations. Small 4to (25 x 19,5 cm). Extensively illustrated with 226 illustrations in black and white. Bound, cloth with spine and front cover lettered in gilt. With a nice, typical of the time, book jacket by Alvin Lustig [1915–1955], a little bit worn though. 

Charles Rosner (Károly Rosner) 1902–1972 was an art critic, curator and publisher born in Budapest. He was educated in the state schools of Budapest, afterwards rising quickly to become a prominent art critic specialising in woodcuts and commercial art. He was appointed editor of Magyar Grafika (Hungarian Graphic Art) in 1927, a role he held for three years until the magazine’s demise. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Rosner fled to England. He took charge of the London-based publishing house Sylvan Press, assisting fellow émigrés by offering them job opportunities in the fields of illustration and publishing. He was co-editor of Modern Publicity the annual of advertising art and later to Graphis and instigated the first International Book Jacket exhibition, held in the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1949. This book first appeared that year; ”The Art of the Book-Jacket”. It’s a survey of the Book cover, with early essay on dust jackets, their form and design and numerous examples from different countries.