IDA – Page 5 – Index of Names & Places

Jerusalem Siege Posters

Posted on January 28, 2022 | by IDA

Yossi Stern and Ismar David working on posters in Jerusalem, 1948. *Ha Magen*, August 27, 1948.

When the United Nations adopted its Partition Plan for Palestine on November 29, 1947, designer Ismar David was studying printing methods in New York. Some contemporary observers believed that Jerusalem would remain exempt from open hostilities, but sporadic fighting broke out in the city almost immediately. David cut short his intended 10-week stay in America to return to Jerusalem, landing at Lydda Airport on January 12, 1948.

The escalating situation in Jerusalem demanded an efficient means of communicating with a multilingual populace and of galvanizing public sentiment and so, the Haganah organized a graphic department with David at its head. Twenty-five-year-old Yossi Stern, a freshly-baked Bezalel graduate and winner of its Hermann Struck Prize for Outstanding Student, Tel Aviv-based Emmanuel Grau, Eliyahu Price, and Gabriella Rosenthal filled out the rest of the team. Working out of David’s studio on Keren Kayemet Street, the group produced designs for stamps, stationery, maps, various periodicals and interior spaces, all at an astounding pace and while attending to their own civilian defense obligations.

David designed a graphic identity for the Haganah, a blue shield with the Israeli flag waving above the ramparts of Jerusalem, and used this bold, new emblem as the focal point for the first of a series of posters, printed on paper shipped from America with the help of Helen Rossi and her sister Zelda Popkin.¹ Posters that followed, for the Haganah and for its affiliates, like the Mishmar ha-Am (People’s Guard), covered admonitions to be careful or to keep calm (with an illustration by Stern), and the perils of curiosity or spreading rumors (both with Stern’s illustrations). David’s water poster graphically distilled—in two water drops—the city’s dire need for conservation and the vulnerability of the Ras-el-Ain pipeline, which was, in fact, damaged by a mine on April 8, 1948.

Most of these works were printed on the only offset press in town, newly installed at A.L. Monsohn Lithographic Press in the Old City. The Haganah had to grant leave to Shimon Baramatz, grandson of the founder and only trained offset operator, to work the press.² When combat or lack of electricity made offset impossible, David used a silk screen setup in his studio. A series of silk-screened Biblical quotations, often printed on the verso of earlier posters, were doubtless meant to strengthen resolve at a time when morale was likely even lower than the supply of paper.

The siege in 1948 was a desperate time for all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Ismar David recalled having to consider if it was worth going through a neighborhood known to have snipers in order to find a tree rumored to have edible leaves. Nevertheless, these posters, made under the most demanding circumstances, were sophisticated, technically well-executed, often witty, and graphic in the best sense of the word. They had an impact even long after their initial appearance.³ Authors Zelda Popkin (Quiet Street, 1951), Harry Levin (Jerusalem Embattled, 1950), and John Roy Carlson, a pen name of Arthur Derounian, (Cairo to Damascus, 1951) mentioned them in their books. Incidentally, that hand in Haganah poster #2 is a photograph of David’s own.

In the spring of 2022, the Coffee Gallery at 25 Chlenov Street in Tel Aviv pays tribute to the efforts of Ismar David and his colleague Yossi Stern with an exhibition of a collection of these 1948 works.

About Pat and Henry Thoma

Posted on November 20, 2021 | by IDA

Patricia Cahir Thoma, c.1930–2009, art director at Houghton Mifflin & Company.
Henry Francis Thoma, c.1909–1983, Harvard professor and editor at Houghton Mifflin & Company.

Scituate-born Patricia Cahir worked at Houghton Mifflin for 44 years, starting as a secretary, holding “top design posts in the educational division” and retiring in 1996 as a company vice president. She was highly regarded by her colleagues, who acknowledged her as an innovative and demanding boss, and as a mentor as well. She was one of the first two women to be inducted into Boston’s Society of Printers and served as its president.¹ In 1976, the Bookbuilders of Boston awarded her its highest honor, the W.A. Dwiggins Award, as someone who “has given ‘something extra’ to her job … in terms of talent, brilliance, integrity, devotion, or helpfulness to others.”²

In 1957 Cahir married Henry Thoma, who had joined Houghton Mifflin in 1946 as an editor and served as chief of its college textbook division from 1963 until he retired in 1974. He was known as an “editor’s editor who set standards of excellence that his successors are constantly challenged to emulate.”³

Ismar David worked with Patricia Cahir and Henry Thoma, beginning in 1957. Their first project was A Survey of European Civilization. They worked closely, planning which historical motifs to use for the thirteen chapter openings for the book and consulting on technical details. Mrs. Thoma counted herself “practically breathless in anticipation of receiving your sketches soon. I know they will be such a tremendous addition to the book.”⁴ Two months later she would write, “Your finishes arrived last week and we are as pleased as we expected to be with them. In fact they will be transmitted to the printer as is and those suggestions in typography you sent will be incorporated with the text. It is certainly a pleasure to receive an assignment prepared with the thoroughness that this one was.”⁵ For his part, David wrote, “I should like to say here that I have found all of your suggestions extremely helpful and feel that they have improved the pages.”⁶

Letter from Patricia Cahir to Ismar David

Letter from Ismar David to Patricia Cahir

Two letters between Patricia Cahir and Ismar David, detailing some of their work in September 1957.Ismar David papers, box 3, folder 65, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

Ismar and Hortense David and Pat and Henry Thoma enjoyed a cordial relationship. Ismar David wrote to Pat Thoma, “My greetings to your husband and kind regards to you both. I hope that next time you are in New York you will have a little more time so that my wife and I can meet you for dinner and/or the theatre.”⁷ A few months later, Pat Thoma wrote to Ismar David, “It was delightful to see Mrs. David the other day. We had a pleasant and gay luncheon with lots of fine conversation. The only thing that might have added to the occasion would have been your company with us.”⁸

About Houghton Mifflin

Posted on November 14, 2021 | by IDA

Hoghton Mifflin & Company, Boston-based publishing firm.

The history of Houghton, Mifflin & Company goes back to mid-nineteenth century, when Henry Oscar Houghton bought into a prominent Boston printing firm, eventually relocating it on the Charles River and renaming it Riverside Press. George Harrison Mifflin became a partner in 1872, by which time the firm had entered publishing without much success. Various mergers ensued and in 1880, under the weight of considerable debt, the two men restructured their business to form Houghton, Mifflin & Company. In 1882, they established an educational department and inaugurated the Riverside Literature Series, which published American classics with study guides for schools. Despite a spotty track record with literature, by 1921 Houghton Mifflin was the fourth largest educational publisher in the U.S. In the 1950s, after steady growth in their educational books division and the acquisition of related educational testing enterprises they were going very strong indeed.

In August 1954, Ismar David showed his portfolio to Connie Coyle at the offices of Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston and, at her suggestion, mailed her photostats of his work two weeks later. However, it was not until 1957 that he received his first commission from the firm. His assignment: J.B., a modern retelling of The Book of Job by poet Archibald MacLeish.

Houghton Mifflin was in a hurry and David made sketches for the jacket, endpapers and title page while on vacation in Rockport. Katharine R. “Jimmy” Bernard reiterated her instructions in a letter, sent to David in care of the Masons: “…we want some rough sketches of ideas for an endpaper decoration and a title page…The designs should avoid being either too biblical or too poetic.”¹ The sketches were approved on July 22, with changes requested for the endpapers: “The endpaper was also approved of, with the exception of the background, which looks more like the biblical background than “J.B.”’s circus tent. We thought that by eliminating the distant city and mountains and the bushes in the foreground, leaving merely the lines running horizontally across the pages, it could be made applicable to both the biblical and the book settings.”² David met Bernard in Boston the following Friday, July 26th, and was able to send the finished work on August 3. Ironically, after the initial rush to get the artwork done, publication was delayed because of extensive author’s alterations.

At the same time, David had begun a new project for Houghton Mifflin, the third edition of A Survey of European Civilization, for which he would design a cover and thirteen complicated chapter openings, combining his own line drawings, photographs and text. The job necessitated research and leg work on David’s part, including visits to the New York Public Library picture collection and the United Nations in search of source material, and even found him negotiating picture rights with a photographer, whose office was one block away from his in midtown Manhattan. David worked well with Patricia Cahir in the Educational Art Department and her colleague, editor Henry F. Thoma, who became her husband later that year. Their business correspondence is frank, but written with warmth, respect and mutual admiration. Hortense Mendel typed the letters on her husband’s behalf and lent them a fair amount of her effervescent style. David enjoyed working on the project. He sent Pat Thoma four examples of different treatments or techniques, including two using scratchboard, for consideration. About the finished drawings, he wrote: “My problem was to, insofar as possible, follow the spirit of the period and yet have all of the drawings relate to each other in feeling and technique. … I have borne in mind, too, that the offset process tends to soften lines and I have drawn these illustrations accordingly.”³

In early 1958, as work continued on European Civilization, J.B. finally appeared. Everyone was pleased with the result. In addition there was “great enthusiasm” and an “enormous amount of excitement stirred up here [in New York] about the book itself.”⁴ (J.B. won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1959.) The Davids were very keen on getting extra proofs of the illustration for the endpaper because “a number of people have asked us for proofs for their files” and “Ismar would also have liked to show it in some exhibitions in which he is being included.”⁵ Jimmy Bernard did her best to help. In the end, the Davids got the cut from Houghton Mifflin and had the illustration printed on rice paper, giving it to friends and colleagues, Paul Standard, Mort and Millie Goldsholl and Pat and Henry Thoma, among them.

David again worked with the Thomas on cover and endpapers for Basic Principles of Speech. The initial cover sketch was rejected, “The cover has not come off so well unfortunately. Almost everybody agreed it might be wiser to omit the impression of the lips.”⁶ An abstract design (minus anatomical references) proved an acceptable and dynamic solution, along with the endpapers, a montage of famous speakers and the authors’ seven basic principles. In late spring 1958, Henry Thoma wrote to David:

Dear Mr. David:

This is just a word to say how delighted I was with your work on both the Sarrett-Foster-Sarett BASIC PRICIPLES OF SPEECH and the Ferguson-Bruun SURVEY OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. Both are extremely handsome books, owing no little to your contributions. I have also seen the beautiful job you did for our Trade Department on MacLeish’s J.B. It has real distinction.

Sincerely,
Henry F. Thoma

Letter from Henry Thoma to Ismar David, Aprill 11, 1958. Ismar David papers, box 3, folder 65, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

David received more commissions from Houghton Mifflin: A History of Art (1959), Children’s Anthology of Literature (1959), illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg; The Changing Soviet School (1960), Introduction to Religious Philosophy (1959), Novels in the Making (1961), Poems in the Making (1963), Theatre and Drama in the Making (1964), series design for Riverside Editions; and series design for Riverside Studies in Literature—which, temporarily at least, used one of David’s Photo-Lettering alphabets. But those first three projects came at a significant time in his career, when he was trying to establish himself in the United States. They showed the variety he was capable of and the enthusiasm and intensity with which he approached his work. Finally, the J.B. endpaper and its reception may represent a breakthrough of sorts in the development of his linear style.

In February of 1974, David was pleasantly surprised to receive a check for the re-use of his signet for Riverside Books. Art director Roy H. Brown wrote on February 12th: “The device that you designed about ten years ago for the Riverside Editions holds up well, so much so, in fact, that we plan to use it further. Of the various devices that have served to identify the Company over the years, yours seems to capture the combination of tradition and modernity that we are seeking.”

Letter from Roy H. Brown to Ismar David, July 3, 1974. Ismar David papers, box 3, folder 65, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

About Gustav Wolf

Posted on November 13, 2021 | by IDA

Gustav Wolf, 1887–1963, architect, civic building manager, educator.

Gustav Wolf trained as an instructor (drawing teacher certification in Breslau) and as an architect (with Theodor Fischer at the Technische Hochschule in Munich), and he had more than a dozen years experience working on public housing projects, before he became Director of Breslau’s Städtische Handwerker- und Kunstgewerbeschule in 1927. A talk he gave on February 4, 1928 before trade organizations in Breslau outlined his approach to arts and crafts education. Sensitive to the economic devastation of post World War I Germany and the increasing capabilities of industry, he sought to integrate modern needs with traditional skills. When he participated in WUWA (Wohnungs- und Werkraumausstellung), an exhibition to build economical and humane living and workspaces in Breslau in 1929, he outfitted his design for a semi-attached house (No. 32-33) with custom “furniture, lighting fixtures, curtains, upholstery fabrics, forged iron screens, as well as glass, leather and ceramic objects,” made in the teaching workshops of the school.¹ The building proved in fact to be the most cost efficient of all the constructions.²

educatingCraftsmenDS

Wolf left Breslau, taking a teaching position at the Staatsbauschule Berlin-Neukölln in 1934. Four years later, he was forced from his post by the Nazi regime. He settled in Münster as the county building maintenance officer and continued research he had begun in Berlin by founding an agency dedicated to publishing a multi-volume work on rural architecture. He lived to see the publication of three volumes of the work.

Universitas Guest Book

Posted on September 16, 2021 | by IDA

Part guest book, part scrapbook, but not quite zealously enough maintained as either, this cloth-bound volume provides snapshots of five decades at Herrmann Meyer’s Jerusalem bookstore, Universitas Booksellers. The people who signed these pages were often politicians, journalists or religious leaders. Prominent names include David Ben Gurion, first prime minister of Israel; Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem; Gershon Agron, founder of the Palestine Post; author James Michener; photographer Yousef Karsh; and Fulton Sheen, American archbishop. A few pages are tributes to individuals: Sir Harold MacMichael, colonial administrator; Sir Alan Cunningham, High Commissioner of Palestine; and Albert Meyer, cited as a senior partner in the store, who celebrated his seventieth birthday on July 26th, 1942.

Exhibitions mentioned in the guest book are:

The Illustrated Book 1485-1935, January 9-17, 1937
Jacob Steinhardt wood cuts, June 1938
Flowers and Birds in Old English Colorated Prints, December 1938
Bookplates, 1440-1940, to celebrate the fifth centenary of the invention of the art of printing.
Book Bindings of Kate Weiner, Sept 23–October 2, 1942
Trees and Landscapes of Palestine, selected watercolors by Helene Barth, December 5–20, 1943
Reconstructive drawings of Jerusalem at the times of King David, King Solomon, Herod the Great and the Crusaders, by Julius Jotham-Rothschild, Architect, April 15–10, 1944
Masterpieces of Caricature, December 1945
Georgian Graphics, 1946
Old Maps of Palestine, January 1947
Jerusalem in Maps and Pictures 15th-19th Century at Ebenezer House, May 15-27, 1947, in conjunction with the British Council

Ismar David’s work can be seen in some of the advertisements and signage for the store. The Dr. Peter Freund who signed the guestbook may be David’s cousin, one of Ismar Freund’s three children.

The Guest Book

Universitas BooksellersUniversitas Booksellers guest book

About Abram Kanof

Posted on September 1, 2021 | by IDA

Abram Kanof, 1903–1999, pediatrician, teacher, Jewish historian, collector, benefactor.

Russian-born, Brooklyn-bred Abram Kanof attended Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Columbia and Downstate Medical Center; enlisted in the navy at the outbreak of World War II, where he developed a cure for atheletes’ foot; and eventually had a long and rewarding career as a pediatrician and educator.¹ He shared an enthusiasm for cultural pursuits with his wife, Frances Pascher, who also became a distinguished physician and educator, and the two would set aside time each week to explore New York, attend concerts and lectures, and visit museums and galleries. They even started collecting the work of young artists, like Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence and Charles Demuth.² This, combined with a passion for Jewish history, grew into lifelong associations with and support of Jewish cultural institutions.

While serving on the board of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Kanof was asked to lead the effort to transform the Warburg family mansion into the Jewish Museum and became its first chairman. He credited its curator, Stephen S. Kayser, with getting him interested in ceremonial objects.³ In 1956, Kanof and Pascher funded the Tobe Pascher Workshop, an active studio for the design of modern Jewish ritual objects within the Jewish Museum. (Ludwig Wolpert was invited to move to the United States to head it.) Kanof wrote extensively about Jewish art and history and was a member of the American Jewish History Association, serving as its president from 1961–64. After their retirement to North Carolina, Kanof and Pascher continued their involvement with the arts. Through their efforts and with many pieces from their collection, the North Carolina Museum developed a permanent Judaica Gallery.

In a letter dated July 1, 1968, Kanof wrote to Ismar David:

Dear Mr. David,

My book on Ceremonial Judaica is now in process. Mr. Harry Abrams, however, has suggested I include a little more about contemporary American craftsmen who have worked in Judaica. I wonder whether you could write me a paragraph or two about yourself, your important Judaica commissions and your ideas in regard to this type of work.

With many thanks.
Sincerely yours,
Abram Kanof, M.D.
Professor

David responded on July 14, during a time of some professional distress. He had been among the instructors that Cooper Union had recently dismissed and had begun working on a series of illustrations for The Psalms without a definite prospect for their publication.

Dear Dr. Kanof,

You were kind enough to ask me about a paragraph or two about myself for your forthcoming book. I am only able to answer now because I have been out-of-town.

Your suggestion seems to me a difficult task because I do not know the style or format that you have in mind. I am not a craftsman who himself works in metal or stone, but I am a designer who had some of his work executed in workshops. Your letter does not indicate whether you are also interested in pictorial material.

I have designed some items for synagogues, an ark, different variations of the Ten Commandments and items for the Jewish home, but I consider my more important contribution to be in the graphic field.

I would consider the design of “David Hebrew” one of my important works. It is comprised of a series of contemporary Hebrew alphabets forming together a family. It was designed for the Intertype Corp. I am aware that to many that is a very esoteric matter, but to me it is an important area of self-expression. I attempted and I hope succeeded to fuse a sound cultural, historic foundation with a true personal present-day expression. If I may phrase it differently, it is a process of absorbing our heritage and then creating out of our own thoughts, feeling and environment. I also have been active illustrating books. As I have only recently chosen Biblical themes, most of this work is not published yet, even so I consider some of these illustrations, what an artist may be allowed to call a personal statement.

I am not sure whether you associate me with the lecture I gave at the Jewish Museum about the Hebrew Alphabet or with the mezuzah design that you had executed at the museum workshop and loaned to the Jewish museum.
Before you include me in your book, I would like you to see some of my work that will be new to you.

I would be glad to arrange [a] meeting with you at your convenience. Looking forward to hear from you.

I am sincerely yours
[Ismar David]

On November 18, 1968, David again wrote to Kanof.

Dear Dr. Kanof,

Some weeks ago I called you to make an appointment with you to get your advice and help in having an exhibition of my work at the Jewish Museum.
You will find enclosed a portfolio, recently published, by the Jewish Publication Society, which is a fair example of the kind of work I would like to show.
I would appreciate very much hearing from you.

Sincerely,
[Ismar David]

The two men had a brief exchange of letters in the autumn regarding a prospectus for The Psalms.

Letter from Abram Kanof — A letter from Abram Kanof to Ismar David, 1972.

Letter to Abram Kanof — A letter from Ismar David to Abram Kanof, 1972.

In a letter, postmarked October 11, 1972, Abram Kanof wrote:

Dear Mr. David—

Congratulations on your beautiful book. Since I am now on the retired list, I shall, alas, have to be content with the trade edition.

Thanx
Best wishes
Cordially,
Abram Kanof

How much would a cut of a return address like yours be?

The response on November 3, 1972:

Dear Dr. Kanof,

Thanks for your gracious note. In answer to your inquiry about the design and hand lettering for an address label, the fee would be $150.00. But it would come to your free with your order of three copies of the psalms special edition.

I hope you are by now well adjusted to your new environment and you can enjoy being near your family.

With best regards
Sincerely Yours,
[Ismar David]

About Stephen S. Kayser

Posted on August 27, 2021 | by IDA

Stephen Sally Kayser, 1900–1988, art historian, curator, lecturer, teacher.

Stefan Salli Kayser was born in Karlsruhe where he studied art history, philosophy and musicology at the Technische Hochschule. He received his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in 1924. As editor and feature writer for the Mannheimer Zeitung and then, later writing for various newspapers in Berlin, he knew many of the luminaries in German visual arts and music through the beginning of the Nazi era. Kayser and his wife, painter Louise Darmstädter, left Germany for Czechoslovakia in 1935, where they spent three idyllic years before fleeing, with Kayser’s parents, to the Netherlands. From there, the family emigrated to the United States, living first in Cincinnati, then in New York and finally settling in southern California.

Kayser was an associate professor in the Department of Art at San Jose State College, when he was invited to help establish the Jewish Museum in New York. Accepting the position, Kasyer turned his polymathic knowledge of art, history, philosophy and culture, as well as a deep and sympathetic understanding of Jewish customs, to the museum’s mandate to “display and promote all forms of artistic expression in the Jewish tradition–painting, sculpture, architecture, music and letters.”¹ In partnership with Darmstädter, who had trained as a theatrical designer, Kayser sought to create ways to look at Jewish artifacts beyond the usual arrangement of an antique store.² During his more than fifteen years at the Jewish Museum, Kayser curated over 80 exhibitions, showcasing both the museum’s vast historical collection and many contemporary artists, and oversaw the acquisition of important collections. He regretted the collapse of a plan for Marc Chagall to paint murals in the auditorium, which Kayser likened to an American Sistine Chapel. His other great disappointment was the removal of a long-neglected 18th century synagogue which Kayser himself had discovered in Vittoria Veneto and its re-installation on two floors inside the Jewish Museum.³ (This historical jewel, where incidentally Lorenzo da Ponte had been a bar mitzvah, eventually made its way to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.)

In 1962 he returned to southern California to join the faculty of the University of Judaism and direct the visual arts department of its School of Fine Arts. Kayser taught at the University of California at Los Angeles College of Fine Arts, much of the time involved in a program designed to integrate all art forms. It was a program for which this youthful pianist cum opera obsessive, erstwhile theater and music critic, who taught others how to identify medieval artists and could write about medieval art and modern music with equal erudition and engagement, was uniquely suited. He became a much loved and admired educator and spent many subsequent years teaching at UCLA Extension.

Stephen Kayser and Ismar David knew each other at least from the early 1950s, when the Jewish Museum mounted an exhibition of David’s work. In 1972, Kayser recommended that Erwin Jospe, Dean of Fine Arts at The University of Judaism, write to David about a possible exhibition. David’s response mentions his pleasure at hearing “…even if only indirectly, from Dr. Kayser for whom I have great fondness.” ⁴ On September 30, 1982, Kayser wrote a frank and cordial letter to David.

Letter from Stephen S. Kayser to Ismar David, September 30,1982. Ismar David papers, box 1, folder 5, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

Dear Ismar David:

Today, I received your lovely שנה טובה greetings, and I hurry to reciprocate your wishes. I was just about to write to you anyhow, as I need something from you.

On Nov. 30, I am scheduled to speak at the Wilshire Blvd. Temple in L.A. on the Visual Arts and Judaism today. Among other aspects, I plan to stress the importance of the far-reaching renaissance of the Hebrew letter in which you played such a leading part. Could you therefor[e] send me some characteristic examples of your lettering and perhaps, in comparison, some traditional (all too black) counterparts? I would make slides of those examples.

As for me, –well I am now 82, but still teaching at the University Extension after eleven years of teaching at UCLA, where I had, all told, 26,000 students.

As you can see from the enclosed, I am more and more taking refuge in the rewarding world of Antiquity, with only a few excursions into the Jewish sector which offered me so many disappointments…

After a bypass operation three year[s] ago, I am still holding my own, so does my good wife while we enjoy the beautiful location of our pent-house right near the ocean.

I hope this finds you and your lady (whom I had the pleasure of meeting by phone) in good health, with repeated thanks,

Yours cordially
Stephen S. Kayser

In the spring of 1987, Sylvia D. Hast visited Dr. Kayser. At the conclusion of a series of interviews,⁵ they they spoke about Existentialism and how Kayser personally came to terms with the vicissitudes of existence. Kayser said:

“This is a picture of life. However, Camus ends his book with ‘I am sure Sisyphus is a very happy man.’ That’s my philosophy. Pushing up that stone, coming down again, and be happy about it—not because of it, in spite of it.”

The Original Typophile

Posted on July 15, 2021 | by IDA

Paul A. Bennett, 1897–1966, advertising executive, typography director for Mergenthaler Linotype Company, founder of the Typophiles.

The New York Times headline for Paul Bennett’s obituary called him simply “typography expert,”¹ as befitted this man who had spent virtually his entire life involved in “advertising, printing and printing machinery”² and around a great many industry luminaries. Bennett grew up in New York City, where his grandfather had a print shop. (And he might have entered the family business, too, but for the collapse of the building in which it operated.) As a teenager, his job setting type for advertisements for Paul B. Hoeber, a book seller and medical publisher, brought him into contact with Frederic Goudy and the two men became friends. Enlistment in the army at age 19 made Bennett briefly a machine gunner, but after his discharge, he returned to printing and took a job as director of Typography for Fuller & Smith, the largest advertising agency in Cleveland. He gained selling and advertising experience at two more firms in Cleveland, before Goudy asked him to return to New York as head of advertising and printing for his old boss Hoeber. The job with Hoeber didn’t last, but a 30-year association with the Mergenthaler Linotype Company in Brooklyn began, and Bennett started meeting casually with other men in the industry for lunch. The group were sometimes referred to as the Biblio-Beef-Eaters and later became known as the Typophiles.³

Paul A. Bennett and Robert L. Leslie, head of the Composing Room and sponsor of Gallery 303’s ‘Heritage of the Graphic Arts’ lectures. — Bennett with Robert L. Leslie. All photographs by A. Burton Carnes, courtesy of Jerry Kelly.

President of the National Arts Club John Clyde Oswald famously described The Typophiles as a body of men surrounded by Paul Bennett.⁴ and that remained pretty much the case until Bennett’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1966. The gregarious, bicycle-race-loving football enthusiast⁵ organized its activities, coordinated the production of its highly-coveted Chap Books and wrote its separately published Chap Book Commentaries. Bennett was the keeper of the secret Chap Book subscriber list. When Hortense Mendel died, Bennett dispassionately conferred with Bob Leslie about whether to send her Chap Books to her widower or “make the spot available”⁶ to someone else. In addition to his tireless work for the Typophiles, Bennett wrote extensively in several publications of the day, gave lectures on graphic arts for New York University and traversed North America, promoting Linotype faces.

Hortense Mendel and Ismar David produced a keepsake for Bennett. David lettered the cover of the 26^th Chap Book Commentary in 1955.

About Charles Skaggs

Posted on June 15, 2021 | by IDA

Charles E. Skaggs, 1917–2017, calligrapher, book designer art director, teacher.

Charles Skaggs began pursuing a professional graphics career as a 16-year-old, sweeping floors and washing brushes for a Louisville commercial artist Bob Richey. He knew even then that he wanted to develop his lettering skills and to leave Kentucky. He worked in advertising and package design in Cincinnati and Chicago before heading east in 1945 to New York to break into publishing. By the end of the decade, he was a full-time book and jacket designer for many of the prominent publishers of the day. The AIGA selected several of Skaggs’ books for inclusion in its Fifty Books of the Year between 1948 and 1955.¹ Skaggs “planned the typography,” as the colophon states, of Les Pensées (Limited Editions Club, 1971).

At the urging of George Salter, Skaggs started teaching (calligraphy and the history of the alphabet) at Cooper Union in 1952.² Salter recommended Ismar David to Cooper in 1954 and in July, David reached out to Skaggs.

Copy of a letter to Charles Skaggs — Copy of a letter from Ismar David to Charles Skaggs, 1954. Ismar David papers, box 1, folder 4, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

Note from Charles Skaggs — Front of a note from Charles Skaggs to Ismar David, 1954. Ismar David papers, box 1, folder 4, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

July 26, 1954
Dear Ismar David

Welcome to the Cooper staff from one who is himself a rather recent (et insignificant) addition.

I get into N.Y. about once a week usually and will be glad to see you and go over what I tried to get across in my year’s teaching. In between current work & getting a new home built, I hope to reorganize my notes and ideas into a more fixed & useable state for the coming year. However there’s no reason we couldn’t talk – tho I may not have much that’s either legible or intelligible to leave with you. Phil Grushkin was of great help to me in this regard just a year ago.

My N.Y. trips are rather unpredictable — but I think I’ll be in on this Thursday –July 29, if you’re free * I can make it maybe we could lunch — or a least get together in the afternoon. Unless I hear from you to the contrary — I’ll probably call you on Thursday — but don’t let this interfere with any plans you may have.*

Looking forward to seeing you — Charles Skaggs

*as I can always try on a later trip.

Memorials by Emanuel Neubrunn

Posted on June 12, 2021 | by IDA

Emanuel Emil Neubrunn, 1888–1973, designer and stone carver.

In his native Vienna, Emil Neubrunn had been an avid skier and progressive ski instructor, ¹ a first lieutenant in the Deutschmeister Regiment,² a Austro-German military unit known for its history and traditions, during the First World War and a registered architect with a successful business, designing and producing stone memorials. Nevertheless, the National Socialists imprisoned the fifty year old Neubrunn when they annexed Austria in 1938. After three and a half months, he was released with the provision that he sign over his property to the Nazi authorities and leave the country. Friends helped him and his family reach safety in Switzerland. From Switzerland, Neubrunn went to England and in 1940, relocated to the United States, where he established a new memorial business in New York City.³ He became active in trade organizations, writing articles and giving occasional lectures. On his trips to suppliers’ conferences in Barre, Vermont, he enjoyed skiing.⁴

As the first anniversary of Hortense Mendel’s death approached, Ismar David ordered a gravestone from Memorials by Neubrunn, to be made according to his specification and full size drawings. David also designed, and Neubrunn executed, a memorial tablet, honoring John Haynes Holmes at the Community Church in New York in 1964/5. In 1965, David helped with a letterhead for Neubrunn’s daughter and Neubrunn apparently reciprocated by making a contribution to the Hillel Foundation of the B’nai B’rith “[i]n honor of my good friend Ismar David.”⁵ In 1972, Neubrunn bought the Psalms as a gift for his son-in-law.”⁶

Gravestone of Hortense Mendel David. Engraved by Emmanuel Neubrunn, 1960.

Emanuel Neubrunn letter — Letter from Emanuel Neubrunn to Ismar David, 1961. Ismar David papers, box 5, folder 107, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

February 28, 1961

Dear Mr. David:
This is to thank you very kindly for your good wishes for 1961 which I reciprocate most sincerely. Our wishes are delayed as we had left New York for Sydney, Australia on Nov. 25th and returned after “80 Days around the World” only two weeks ago.

We visited with our children & grand children and then went on to Singapore, New Delhi, Israel, Paris, Stockholm & London.

We took many colored slides and hope to be able to show them to you & our friends.

With best personal regards,
Yours Annie & Emil Neubrunn.

Neubrunn Memorials 1955 brochure

Ismar David papers, box 5, folder 107, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.