Der Wassermann. Studienblätter für Büchermacher. Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann Verlag, [1945]. Edition of about 70 copies. Small folio. 4 vols. Loose bifoliums (largely), some in gatherings. Pp. 168; [iv], 156; 180; [iv], 144. Orig. cloth and board portfolios (worn but sound). Printed labels. A good set. Scarce. SOLD
Schneidler’s unfinished master-work – except for vol. 3, a
collection of fragments, really - consists largely of illustrative material for a textbook of the graphic arts programme he taught and directed (with
various specialist departmental heads) at the Stuttgart state academy of
applied arts between the two world wars (and for a short time after 1946). The
work is assembled mainly from sheets printed there between about 1925 and 1934.
(Volume 3 appeared separately in 1934 but the work was not published as a whole
until 1945.)
The material is gathered by subject. Vol. 1 consists mainly of
studies in book typography; vol. 2 covers non-typographic lettering; vol. 3 is
more focused and consists of designs for an edition of Horace: it is the only
part of the work considered to have been completed; vol. 4 is chiefly devoted
to illustration and ornament, with some packaging design.
The title is best translated as 'the water-carrier' and refers
to the astrological sign of Aquarius whose characteristic personality traits
Schneidler believed should be cultivated by the graphic arts student.
A small number of presentation copies of this work contain some
extra sheets. This copy corresponds in extent to the Newberry Library copy
described by Georgianna Greenwood below and was bought from Hoffmann at about
the same time, in the early 1950s (Hoffmann’s original invoice is present). Fewer
than a dozen copies of Der Wassermann can be located in European and
North American institutional libraries and there seems to be only one in the UK,
in Cambridge University Library.
Schneidler was the designer of the script typeface Legende and his powerful calligraphy provides some of the strongest material in Der Wassermann. More generally, the work reflects a continuing conservative
tradition of graphic arts training (the ‘Stuttgart school’) and its negotiation
with the forces of modernism.
Schneidler left a large body of graphic and fine artwork but
he is perhaps best known as a teacher. Among his many notable students were
Walter Brudi, Eric Carle, Albert Kapr, Imre Reiner and Georg Trump.
SOURCES
Georgianna Greenwood, ‘Der Wassermann by F.H. Ernst
Schneidler, an appreciation’, in Alphabet: the journal of the friends of
calligraphy, 26:1, Fall 2000. 32pp, with 31 illustrations selected by Paul
Shaw.
Sandra Lauenstein, ‘Schindler’s opus magnum’, pp. 147ff, in Buch
Kunst Schrift F.H. Ernst Schneidler, ed. by Nils Buttner et al., Stuttgart,
2013.
Der Wassermann is the subject of a
small, Grolier Club online exhibition, with brief notes by Jerry Kelly:
grolierclub.omeka.net/items/show389
The first article in the first number (1949) of Herbert Spencer’s modernist periodical Typographica
is devoted to Schneidler’s experimental calligraphy, though the examples
reproduced there are more recent than those in Der Wassermann which
curiously goes unnoticed in G. K. Schauer’s (somewhat opaque) accompanying text.
