wiedler.ch

book (design) story #2

carola giedion-welcker:
poètes à l'écart / anthologie der abseitigen

verlag benteli AG, bern-bümpliz, 1946
size: 20 x 20 cm
designer: richard paul lohse

"offside poetry"– that's a rough translation of the french and german title of the book. in the foreword which dates from december 1944 the editor explains: the anthology includes works by poets that are hardly accessible because they could not find a major publisher and were published only in small editions now out of print.

from today's point of view, the list of these "hardly published" poets is a bit of a surprise: henri rousseau, wassily kandinsky, francis picabia, paul klee, pablo picasso, theo van doesburg, jean arp, kurt schwitters, giorgio de chirico, just to name a few. they are all famous now, although not primarily for their literary works. in this book, poetry by these artists representing various movements from abstract to dada is published alongside works by german expressionist poets such as jakob van hoddis and august stramm. short biographies and portrait pictures of each author are included.

the editor is carola giedion-welcker (1893-1979), who was – together with her husband sigfried giedion – an important promoter of modern art, architecture and literature. as the foreword credits, the anthology was prepared with the help of a young man who later became a leading expert and dealer in modern art books – hans bolliger.

the cover design and typography by swiss painter and graphic designer richard paul lohse (1902-1988) is stunning. with its rectangular color fields in red, yellow, black and white, the cover reflects lohse's "constructive" painting style he started to develop in the mid-1940s. the book was originally issued with a glassine protective dust wrapper. set entirely in sans-serif, this small paperback is an early example of swiss typography as it became internationally renowned in later years. the square format and the multilingual text are also typically "swiss".

in 1951 the book made it into the new york exhibition catalogue "books for our time" (edited by marshall lee). it is featured with the caption: the cover would make this book completely at home in a modern building furnished in contemporary style – which can not be said of many books produced today.

this particular copy has its own little story to tell. the inside of the cover bears the editor's hand-written inscription: to eugène jolas / from c.g-w. / zürich, march 7th 1947. eugene jolas is among the authors included in the book. his wife maria's name and paris address are on the title page. interestingly, there are some pen-written corrections – likely by eugene or maria jolas – to apparent misprints in the bio and one of the poems.