Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972)

My admiration for the radical and pioneering poster work produced by Lucian Bernhard in the early years of the last century, knows no bounds.  His invention of the sachplakat where the advertiser’s message is reduced to a single, starkly simplified rendering of the product carefully positioned on a flat colour ground together with the product name was an amazing step forward in the evolution of the modern style. It marked a decisive break with prose heavy graphics laden with testimonials and descriptive copy.  Bernhard acknowledged his debt to the Beggarstaff Brothers (William Nicholson and James Pryde) for the elegant and spare distillation of complex forms in their fin-de-siècle theatrical poster designs. But the impact of his bold colour choices and taut compositions was all his own work.

It’s always been a puzzle that no monograph devoted to his work existed. After all, his great Munich-based rival, Ludwig Hohlwein (whose instincts were much more conservative) was the subject of a major survey by H K Frenzel (editor of Gebrauchsgraphik) in 1926 as well as several post-war exhibition catalogues. Steven Heller has long been the major online cheerleader for Bernhard with a series of well researched postings of which this is one from 2012. Anyway, the wait is over - in 2024 Christopher Long’s monograph was published by KANT in Prague (ISBN: 97880 743 74135). The long absence of a monograph is well explained by the author in his introduction where he describes all the fabrications and misinformation he had to sift through. Much of it was created by Bernhard himself - he changed his name (from Emil Kahn), created false chronologies and circulated endless falsehoods about his career. It’s hard to detect a purpose behind the mendacity - perhaps a desire to embellish his reputation or, more simply, an appetite for mischief-making. It seems that Bernhard was something of an unknowable character - despite his gregarious personality, he had few, if any, close friends and his womanising ways and long absences placed enormous strain on his wife and family.

The sachplakat era began in 1903 with the first reductive poster designs for the Priester match company that limited the elements to the company name and two stylised matches. The writer has untangled the evolution of the Priester variants and concludes that the most celebrated version, usually dated between 1904 to 1906, was actually created more than a decade later. Bernhard quickly acquired prestigious clients - Adler typewriters, Stiller shoes, Osram lightbulbs, Kaffee Hag, Manoli cigarettes and most lucrative of all, Bosch electricals, whose booming business was powered by Bernhard’s explosive spark-plug in all its variations.  This period of expansion came to an end with the outbreak of war in 1914 and Long has a detailed account of Bernhard’s brief service and his subsequent deployment on propaganda duties that utilised his many talents from cartooning to typography. After the war he continued to serve the new Socialist government designing banknotes and party political posters. Alongside this he expanded his advertising business to the point where some 24 staff were employed in his city centre office and studios. Throughout the 1920s Bosch continued to be his best client.

In 1923 Bernhard was invited to New York for a lecture tour arranged by a printer and Modernism enthusiast, Roy Latham whose intention was to galvanise the city’s admen to adopt a more adventurous European approach. Bernhard was captivated by the city, extended his stay and began a period of 4 years dividing his time between Berlin and New York. The Berlin office carried on in his absences under the management of his deputy, Fritz Rosen although the output began to lose its radical edge. In New York Bernhard found the innate conservatism of the locals made it difficult to find work.  Assiduous cultivation of personal contacts eventually paid off - notably with Amoco and REM  cough medicines. Faint echoes of the sachplakat could be detected in the REM and Amoco posters and a possible awareness of Dorothy and Otis Shepard’s designs for Wrigley. Amoco was still offering him work as late as the 1950s but his last 20 years were a sad postscript of semi-retirement. Bernhard laboured long and hard to adapt his European subtleties to the prevailing visual vulgarity but his heart was never really in it. All of this and much more in this generously illustrated and superbly researched survey - the author has tracked down every archival reference and available source to describe the twists and turns of a long career that began in Stuttgart, flourished in Berlin and languished in a long, slow decline in New York.