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book (design) story #16

karl gerstner:
kalte kunst?

verlag arthur niggli , teufen, 1957
printer: buchdruckerei hutter, basel
size: 19 x 20 cm
designer: karl gerstner

in 1957, karl gerstner (1930-2017) published his first book as an author: "kalte kunst?" tries to counter the widespread prejudice against constructive art being "cold".

after a short history of constructivist/concrete art gerstner focusses on swiss artists such as max bill, camille graeser, verena loewensberg, and richard paul lohse, followed by an emerging younger generation, among them marcel wyss, mary vieira and karl gerstner himself. like bill and lohse, gerstner was a painter who earned his money as a graphic designer.

the book's design combines gerstner's trademark lower-case beginnings of title lines (in akzidenz-grotesk semi-bold) and unjustified setting of text with some other features he regularly used: square format, different colour papers for different sections, and brownish card wrappers (gerstner seems to love brown) with a white spine.

gerstner provides great analytical texts and diagrams for some of the reproduced paintings. the following examples are in this order: bill, graeser, loewensberg, and lohse (with foldout).

the color plates are of a phantastic print quality. in his recent book "5x10 years graphic design" (isbn 3775791515) karl gerstner remembers how this quality was achieved: the pictures were printed from line plates using individually mixed inks – there are no halftone dots!

these letter-press prints are of a colour quality comparable to an artist's lithograph or screenprint.

some of these impressive plates were actually printed in a seperate run on bigger sheets, and sold as limited edition prints, numbered and signed by the artists.

this particular copy has a hand-written inscription by its author to a colleague: "herrn otl aicher / mit freundlichen grüßen / ka ge / basel, 8. XII. 57".

a second edition was published in 1963, using 1000 spare copies of the outstanding color plates, as stated in the new foreword. otherwise it is identical.