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BOOKPLATES THE WORLD OF EX-LIBRIS |
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A historical retrospective 4 EX-LIBRIS: A THEMATIC APPROACH |
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4d VANITAS OR THE TRANSIENCE OF POSSESSION 1650-1950 |
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4d/11. Horacio Gaigher (I, 1870-1938)  IPSE, C3,
157 x 120, c.1910.
Gaigher was born in Italy, started by studying medicine and then turned to arts, lived and worked in Paris, Spain and South America, where he settled in 1928 in Patagonia; he returned to Europe and died in Austria.His plate for his own books is a special vanitas concept: he is Death, holding a palette. |
4d/12. Curt Hasenohr-Hoelloff (D, 1887-1987!) HEINRICH
REBENSBURG, C3 + C5, 239 x 76, 1910.
Viz. JugS p. 22, 23, ill.
Hasenohr was a painter, graphics and enamel artist of importance, who – near Leipzig – made some thirty ex-libris. This one can be given an interesting interpretation: even if Death can put out a life, it cannot destroy Life itself, which is represented in the details of the plate referring to procreation and childhood. |
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4d/13. Erhard Amadeus-Dier (A, 1893-1969) RICHARD
SINGER, C3, 115 x 80, c.1920.
The same message is carried in this bookplate by the Austrian artist Amadeus-Dier – perhaps by the minute remarque of a child with an hour-glass. |
4d/14. Robert Budzinski (D, 1874-1955) ? PAUL GREINICH,
C3, 106 x 153, 1916.
Budzinski was one of the most delicate, impressionistic engravers of the German ‘Golden Age’. In this plate, the vanitas theme is perfectly present by the mere shadow on a skeleton’s arms and scythe on the woman lying on the beach. |
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4d/15. Christian J. Hacker (D, ?-1940) FRANZ LEHRER, C4,
148 x 99, c.1920.
Hacker was a strange artist with varied taste in his engravings, going from Orientalism – Arab or Japanese – to deep European subjects. This vanitas ex-libris is no exception. One wonders if the figure clutching at the woman is a skeleton or some vision of horror of a victim of famine. |
4d/16. Willi Geiger (D, 1878-1971) HUGO SANNER, C3, 151 x
110, c.1920.
Geiger was without doubt one of the most important expressionist engravers in Germany in his time. His ex-libris opus is substantial, and this Death triumphant motif is one of his fine pieces. |
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4d/17. Karl Ritter (D, 1888-1977) KARL ANDRES, C3, 192 x
122, 1921.
Close to the mediaeval Totentanz or dance of death, this magnificent plate by Ritter is the epitome of vanitas ex-libris. Ritter was certainly a master of etching and one of the finest artists of his generation. Most of his numerous ex-libris were made before his exile to Argentina after the Second World War. |
4d/18. Georg Oskar Erler (D, 1871-1951) IPSE, C3,
120 x 95, c.1920.
A remarkable artist of the Dresden school, Erler chose vanitas as the motif for his own bookplate. It is a most successful image, the couple seeming totally carefree and unaware of Death embracing them. |
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4d/19. Max Schenke (D, 1891-1957) FRITZ BEUL, C4,
143 x 135, c.1920.
Schenke was one of the central figures of the Dresden school and is perhaps the finest German drypoint artist of the 1920s. He made many ex-libris on the vanitas theme – of which this one showing two elegant gentlemen running – literally – for their lives, having met Death at a street corner. |
4d/20. Max Schenke (D, 1891-1957) DR. L. SCHWEINBURG,
C4, 131 x 132, c.1920.
One cannot resist including another superb image by Schenke. His feeling for anatomy was so accurate that his skeletons are perfect representations of the human body in movement. |
4d21 - 4d29
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