Acknowledgements
This book is the product of a years-long curiosity about German Expressionism in its various manifestations, especially art and literature. Combining profound ideas with often seemingly unrestrained, even kitsch expressivity, Expressionist art is an ideal object of study for understanding the dynamics of the early twentieth-century visual environment in Germany, as well as Germansâ efforts to find bold visual means to convey their desires for social, political, and aesthetic change, and for a more just world. The following investigation of the relationship between Expressionist art and poster design is based on my dissertation from the Department of Art History at University of Southern California, and I would not have been able to complete that study or this book without the assistance, advice, and support from numerous people.
I came to this projectâand to art history as a field of studyâdue to the guidance of key friends and scholars. I will be forever grateful to Peggy Kamuf, emerita Professor of French and Italian and Comparative Literature at USC, who drew my attention to USCâs Art History Department and its museum studies program, and encouraged me to apply. Her advice was life-changing, setting me on an unexpected scholarly path that, as a literary scholar, I hadnât considered seriously. Having entered the program for an MA, I ultimately stayed for a PhD because of the chance to work with Karen Lang, now Professor of the History of Art at University of Warwick. Her intellectual rigor and commitment to the complexities of art history as a discipline have continued to inspire me. I greatly value her support for my work, and what I learned from her and from her writing has shaped me as a scholar.
The foundation of this project was laid during my work as an intern and then as a curatorial assistant at the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Timothy O. Benson, curator of the Rifkind Center, introduced me to the connections between Expressionist art and poster design. His providing me with the opportunity to research the Centerâs poster collection enabled me to delve deeply into the fascinating relationships between posters and Expressionism. I also have benefitted immeasurably from his encyclopedic knowledge of German modernist art, his boundless enthusiasm for thinking and continuing to learn about it, and his ongoing support for my research. The staff at the Rifkind Center was also central to this project. The registrar Chris Vigiletti provided invaluable guidance to the holdings of the center, and the Centerâs librarians Erica Essau and Julie Kim patiently helped me with research questions. In fact, I believe that my research would have been impossible without the Rifkind Centerâits rich resources have provided me with a wealth of information that I continue to work through. My work was also enhanced by the many early twentieth-century German art historical monographs, arts-related periodicals, and exhibition catalogues at the Research Library of the Getty Research Institute.
Much of my preliminary research was conducted in Germany. I am grateful for having the opportunity to speak with René Grohnert, Director of the German Poster Museum at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, during the early phases of this project; his enthusiasm for the study of posters and his intellectual generosity encouraged me to pursue my lines of inquiry. The resources of the Staatsbibliothek, the Kunstbibliothek, and the Werkbundarchiv in Berlin, and the library of the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna enabled me to conduct the bulk of my preliminary primary research, and I appreciate the dedicated assistance of the many librarians who assisted me. I began my work on this project at a moment when large-scale digitization of historical periodicals and books was just beginning, and I value having had the opportunity to page my way through the sources that form the basis of my analysis. The physical experience of reading early twentieth-century periodicals, particularly those devoted to art and to advertising graphics, provides a level of comprehension of the impact of these journals and the works they reproduced that does not translate into the digital format. I am also thankful for the many individuals and institutions that have made images available for this book, especially Joyce Faust at Art Resource. Full credits for these images appear in the Credits List.
I am also grateful for the scholarly commitment of and support from my colleagues in the Department of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University: James Farmer, Eric Garberson, Babatunde Lawal, Peggy Lindauer. Carolyn Porter Phinizy, Catherine Roach, and Tobias Wofford. I particularly appreciate my discussions with Eric Garberson, whose insights into German art historiography have helped me think through historiographical issues in my own work. I also could not have produced an illustrated volume without the steady support and patient, practical assistance of Peggy Lindauer and Carolyn Porter Phinizy. Working with VCU School of the Arts students has also benefitted me enormously. I continue to learn from the students in my graduate classes, whose insights into the complexities of European modernism have enriched my thinking about the art and history of the twentieth century. I extend particular thanks to graduate assistant and student Anna Talarico, who helped with finding the images for this book. Students in my undergraduate courses on German Expressionist art have also taught me a great deal; their enthusiastic engagement with and insightful understandings of works we discuss affirms that Expressionism is more than some vivid form of European modernist art that is safely canonized and neatly tucked away the past. Expressionist art still speaks to twenty-first-century audiences, who seem perhaps to find affinities between Expressionist artistsâ and writersâ desires for a different, more meaningful, more humane world, and their own hopes for the future.
Particularly helpful to this project has been Ivo Romein, my editor who has assisted me in realizing this book and whose patience and guidance I greatly appreciate.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to friends and family who have supported and encouraged me throughout this process. I value the intellectual exchanges and friendships I have enjoyed with Frank Forte, Rebecca Hall, Beth Musgrave, and Samina Iqbal, whose insights, curiosity, and creativity inspire me. Without my family, this project would not have been possible, and I dedicate this book to them. My mother Marian Chapman and my late father Raymond Chapman instilled in me the respect for learning and social necessity of understanding the past and the present that ground my work as a scholar. My mother, my sister Kelly von Ruden and my brother Tim (Kai) Chapman have provided an endless supply of encouragement and insight that have kept me on track. This book is also dedicated to Michael du Plessis, my most careful reader, my most consistent touchstone, and my often geographically distant yet ever-and-always closest, dearest companion. And I cannot neglect to thank Lily, Madeleine, Otto, and Rosa, whose steady presences have reassured me throughout this process.
An early version of Chapter One appeared as âIllustration and Advertising: Wilhelm Worringerâs Die altdeutsche Buchillustration,â in The Expressionist Turn in Art History, ed. Kimberly Smith, 57â79 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014). An early version of Chapter Two appeared as âHieroglyphs of Modernity: The Visual Rhetoric of the German Sachplakat,â in Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling, ed. Louisa Iarocci, 37â53 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). Portions of Chapter Five appeared in ââCollectivity Is Dead, Long Live Mankindâ: Der Komet (1918â9), Menschen (1918â21), and Neue Blätter für Kunst und Dichtung (1918â21),â in Modernist Magazines: A Critical and Cultural History. Vol. Three: Europe, ed. Peter Brooker, Andrew Thacker, and Christian Weikop, 888â904 (Oxford, U.K. and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).