Designs on Britain

Mister Handmade in Israel and I made a flying visit to London recently for our niece's Bat Mitzvah. Most of the weekend was taken up with the celebrations, but I did manage to find a few hours on the Sunday morning to visit the wonderful Designs on Britain exhibition at London's Jewish Museum.

20th century design in the UK was greatly influenced by the arrival in the 1930s and 40s of pioneering Jewish émigré designers from continental Europe. These designers brought with them a knowledge of European modernism, which they had learnt at celebrated design schools on the continent. There they learnt new techniques such as photomontage which had not yet reached Britain. Others studied at the Reimann School, founded in 1902 in Berlin but the school was forced to relocate to London in 1937 after Nazi persecution of its Jewish owners. It was the first commercial art school to open in Britain.

Designs on Britain features the work of these immigrant designers and covers graphic design, product design and corporate identities. It focuses on 20 different designers who created work for major British companies or British events, and who helped import European styles into British life. Many of these designers went on to dominate British graphic design in the 1940s, creating many of Britain's most iconic symbols.

Among the designs featured in the exhibition are Tom Karen's 70s Raleigh Chopper bike and a Marble Run toy, early iterations of Penguin books by Romek Marber, and even the popular circle-and-bar London bus stop sign by Hans Schleger. On display are iconic posters for the London Underground, British Rail, the General Post Office and the War Office created by designers FHK Henrion, Hans Ungar and Dorrit Dekk.

Originally destined for a career in set design in Austria, Dorrit Dekk arrived at work one day to be handed a note stating, 'Jews not allowed'. Escaping to London, she worked for the government’s Central Office of Information producing iconic posters such as ‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases’ before setting up on her own as a graphic designer.
Another famous poster, 'Dig for Victory', was designed by FHK Henrion, who also started his own business and was a pioneer in developing the idea of corporate identity. His clients included such stalwart British companies as the Post Office, the National Theatre and Tate and Lyle.

The exhibition also includes a powerful design by Henrion entitled Four Hands and dated 1944. It was a design for the US Office of War Information, for use in Europe after D-Day and shows four hands, each marked with the flag of one of the allies, pulling apart a swastika.

Designs on Britain is organised thematically across travel, war-time, publishing, toys, vehicles and the 1951 Festival of Britain. Many of the designers went from being interned in Britain to working for the War Office. Post-war, the 1951 Festival of Britain was very significant. A number of the designers were commissioned to produce work for the Festival. This was a nationwide party to celebrate the end of the war and a new beginning. It meant that they entered the world of design in a blaze of glory. They then went on to work for many companies including London Transport and British Rail, for the General Post Office, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) as well as in corporate identity for companies such as Penguin, John Lewis and Schweppes.

Though each of the designers was Jewish-born none of them were particularly religious in their outlook. George Him worked hard for Israel but even he had not had a particularly Jewish upbringing. He was close friends with Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, with whom he had studied in Russia. It is probable that many of the commissions he received from Israeli organisations came through Kollek. In 1960 he was appointed Chief Designer for El Al, creating numerous designs for the company.

FHK Henrion also worked closely with Israel as his parents had settled there before the war. He designed brochures for the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and for WIZO and he regularly taught at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
Possibly what all the designers had in common was that they all felt that they were outsiders. All were involved in various professional organisations and they mixed together. They were all very supportive of each other and helped each other to find clients and commissions.

The exhibition was guest curated by Naomi Games, the daughter of renowned British designer Abram Games. The Jewish Museum organised a very successful exhibition of Games' work to mark the centenary of his birth in 2014 and, after the exhibition, Naomi started to think about all the designers who were friends of her parents and who used to visit their home. She decided it was about time their work was shown too. Abram Games' work is not included in the exhibition as the curators chose to include only those designers who were born abroad, and Games was born in Whitechapel. He was, however, close friends with almost all the designers included.

Designs on Britain is on at London's Jewish Museum and continues until 15th April 2018. I highly recommend a visit!

* This post has been shared on Seasons, No Rules Weekend Blog Party, Sundays In My City, Welcome To The Weekend, The Good. The Random. The Fun., Monday Morning Blog Club and Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday).

Dan Reisinger

The award-winning Israeli designer Dan Reisinger has created some of Israel's most well-known graphics, and is renowned for his innovative use of symbols and vibrant visual language. An exhibition at the Israel Museum, In Full Color: 60 Years of Design by Dan Reisinger, opened in June and I was recently lucky enough to see it. The exhibition highlights the wide range of Reisinger's work in both style and size: from business cards and keyrings, to buildings and large-scale supergraphics. It includes the designs he created for private companies, as well as public organizations such as the Tel Aviv Municipality, Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Habimah National Theatre and El Al Israel Airlines. It was a wonderful exhibition and I couldn't tear myself away from it!

Born in 1934 in Kanjiza, Serbia, Reisinger lost several family members in the Holocaust, including his father. He survived the Nazi occupation in a hideout and as a teenager became active in the partisan Pioneer Brigade, immigrating with his mother and stepfather to the new State of Israel in 1949. Reisinger initially lived in a transit camp and then worked as a house painter in order to earn money from almost any source. He later attended Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy of Art and Design as the youngest student accepted to the school at that time.

In 1954, Reisinger served in the Israeli Air Force, where he put his design skills to use art directing military publications. During this time in the Air Force he attended a class on postage-stamp design taught by the British graphic designer Abram Games, who became his mentor and friend. Subsequently, Reisinger travelled, studied, and worked in Europe: from 1957 in Brussels and then onto London where, from 1964–66, he studied stage and three-dimensional design at the Central School of Art and Design. He designed posters for Britain's Royal Mail, and worked for other clients while making intermittent visits to Israel. In 1966 he returned permanently to Israel and established his Dan Reisinger Studio in Tel Aviv. The same year he was commissioned to design the Israeli Pavilion at the Expo '67 in Montreal.

Reisinger soon became one of the most prolific Israeli designer of his generation and won many prizes. He designed a new logo for El Al (1972), and the 50-meter-long aluminium-cast relief of a biblical quotation in Hebrew on the exterior of Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to Holocaust victims in Jerusalem (1978). He designed three Israel Defence Forces (IDF) decorations: the Medal of Valor, the Medal of Courage and the Medal of Distinguished Service. He also created the logos for the Tel Aviv Museum of Arts, Tefen Museum of Arts, and Habima National Theatre, and the symbol and posters of the 9th-15th Maccabiah Games.

Reisinger's widely published self-produced poster, "Again?" (1993), above, features a Nazi swastika (which he incorrectly made to face left) breaking apart to form a five pointed red star of the Soviet Union, in reference to the possible dreaded repeat of the Holocaust. His "Let my people go" poster (1969) was actually a petition to the USSR authorities to let the Jewish people get out of the nation’s borders and immigrate to the Jewish nation. It was used in the demonstrations and served the demonstrators in their struggle.
He had his first solo exhibition at the Israel Museum Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1976-77, and has since exhibited his works in Israel and around the world in numerous group and one-person exhibitions. In 1998 Reisinger was awarded the Israel Prize - one of the state’s highest honours - the first designer to be the recipient of such an award, exactly 40 years after his first award, the 1958 Brussels Expo first medal for poster design. For his 70th birthday, the Hungarian Government honoured Reisinger with a comprehensive one man show at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest.

There is no doubt that Reisinger's work has had a significant impact on the development of design in Israel, which continues to be felt to the present day. One of his more significant contributions has been to stretch the visual and communicative possibilities of Hebrew letters through his symbols and logos. His unique style is colourful and modern, playful in some posters and making provocative, impactful statements in others.
Reisinger still dedicates himself to painting and design today, and frequently takes part in international events as a jury member and lecturer. He is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and the New York Art Directors Club, an honorary professor at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, and an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Design, the committee of the International Biennale of Graphic Design Brno, and the Israel Designers Association.

* This post has been shared on Sundays in my City, What’d You Do This Weekend?, Amaze Me Monday, Monday Morning Blog Club, Fearless Family Travel, The Good. The Random. The Fun. and Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday).