Für die künstlerischen Secessionsbewegungen zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts war eine hochwertige grafische Produktion, die sich als Teilgebiet der angewandten Kunst verstand, geradezu Programm, erklärte man doch z.B. im ersten Heft der Zeitschrift Ver Sacrum: "Wir kennen keine Unterscheidung zwischen »hoher Kunst« und »Kleinkunst«, zwischen Kunst für die Reichen und Kunst für die Armen. Kunst ist Allgemeingut..." 

Nicht zu unterschätzen für die Entwicklung der Gebrauchsgrafik in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts war der künstlerische Exodus von Europa nach Amerika zur Zeit des Naziterrors. Vor allem ehemalige Künstler des Bauhauses wie Josef Albers entwickelten ihre dort begründeten Designansätze nach ihrer Emigration in die USA weiter wenn sie nicht gar wie Herbert Bayer vollends von der Werbebranche - mit sehr reizvollen Ergebnissen, die sicher auch noch Andy Warhol beeinflusst haben - vereinnahmt wurden. In der Wirtschaftwunder-Atmosphäre nach dem 2. Weltkrieg haben gewitzte Künstler mit Sinn für's Geschäft wie z.B. Picasso den Unterschied zwischen "hoher Kunst" und "Kleinkunst" sehr wohl wieder entdeckt und - auch unter bewusster Verwischung der Grenzen zwischen den beiden - quasi zum Geschäftsmodell gemacht. Während Finanzkräftige hohe Summen für Gemälde ausgeben durften, blieb für den Durchschnittsverdiener immer noch das "originallithographische" Plakat oder das Buch mit Originalgrafik. Heute sind auch diese, zur Zeit ihrer Entstehung noch erschwinglichen Drucksachen, im Nachhinein geadelt und dadurch oft zu Preziosen geworden.

Künstler: Josef Achmann, Pierre Alechinsky, Gerd Arntz, Hans Arp, Ernst Barlach, Rudolf Bauer, Herbert Bayer, Aubrey Beardsley, František Bílek, Frank Brangwyn, Georges Braque, Erich Buchholz, Josef Čapek, Oskar Dalvit, Gunter Damisch, Honoré Daumier, André Derain, Gustave Doré, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Maurits Cornelis Escher, Maurice Estève, Lyonel Feininger, Karl Anton Fleck, Alberto Giacometti, Martina Geist, Franz Gertsch, Hap Grieshaber, George Grosz, Wolfgang Hamer, Hans Hartung, Carry Hauser, Erich Heckel, Utagawa Hiroshige, Bernhard Hoetger, Josef Hoffmann, Vlastislav Hofman, Katsushika Hokusai, Ambrosius Holbein, Hans Holbein d.J., Daniel Hopfer, Hieronymus Hopfer, Arthur Illies, Oscar Jespers, Asger Jorn, Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel, Rudolf Junk, Max Kaus, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Gustav Klimt, František Kobliha, Käthe Kollwitz, Jan Konůpek, Alfred Kubin, Utagawa Kunisada, František Kupka, Maximilian Kurzweil, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Marcks, Frans Masereel, Joan Miró, Kolo Moser, Adriaen Muntinck, Emil Orlik, Bernhard Pankok, Max Pechstein, A. R. Penck, Mihailo S. Petrov, Daniel Pfauth, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Piloty, José Guadalupe Posada, Marcantonio Raimondi, Rixdorfer Künstler, Karl Rössing, Herbert Rosner, Carl Rotky, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Christoffel van Sichem, John Skippe, Václav Spala, Klaus Staeck, Varvara Stepanova, Curt Stoermer, Vincent Le Sueur, Karel Teige, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Josef Váchal, Félix Vallotton, Lynd Ward, Andy Warhol

Art for Every Day
Artists as graphic designers and illustrators

Commercial art and graphic design were not invented by the booming advertising sector in the early twentieth century, even if this period produced a large number of high-quality artists’ designs for all types of printed matter, known as ‘ephemera’ on account of their alleged throwaway nature. Many of these designs for posters, newspaper advertisements, book art, invitation cards, artistic postcards, etc., have become classics reproduced thousands of times over. Vienna, home of the Secession and artists like Gustav Klimt, Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Max Kurzweil and its own magazine Ver Sacrum, was a centre around 1900 of the arts and crafts movement, which also embraced graphic arts, at least in the eyes of the artists involved, as a branch of applied arts. In France, the unique tradition of newspaper caricatures initiated by Daumier was continued by artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Félix Vallotton and František Kupka. Book illustration, with or without text, was a special case, bridging the gap between art “for eternity” and art for “daily use”. Although there were art books designed as pure art objects, most illustrated books at the turn of the century and above all during the Expressionist period soon afterwards were books with texts by contemporary authors, augmented by illustrations by well-known artists, in which readers came into contact subliminally with art. Book covers, endpapers and title pages have remained an ideal area for creative and sophisticated design by artists. The Czech book production of the 1920s with cover designs by Vlastislav Hofman, Josef Čapek, Václav Spala or Karel Teige is particularly noteworthy in this regard. But a distinction must also be made here. Only those who can separate the inherent value of an artistic idea from its purely pecuniary value can appreciate the value of successful commercial art.

Graphic prints have a long history as utilitarian objects, and their particular charm is often to be found in the ambivalence between the soaring heights of artistic imagination and experimentation and the banal context in which the graphic art is located. It should be borne in mind that from its beginnings in the late Middle Ages, print has been used mainly for non-artistic purposes. When it first appeared in Europe, it was used for playing cards or illustrated bibles for those who could not read. Even today, the message inherent in a printed picture is used to replace language. Even if some examples were of the highest artistic quality – the young Dürer’s Ship of Fools illustrations, or Holbein the Younger’s Basel book illustrations, for example – graphic art remained subordinate for a long time to the written word and only gradually and surreptitiously became an art form in its own right, particularly when the illustration spoke a different language than the text or the illustrated commentary supplemented the information contained in the text, as was the case with the Petrarch Master in the early sixteenth century.

Before the invention of photography, the dissemination of artistic ideas would not have been conceivable without another form of art, often unspecifically referred to as “reproductive art”. Armies of minor artists busied themselves transforming the designs by their famous colleagues into graphic media such as woodcuts, copper engravings or etchings. The models ranged from large-scale frescos to drawings made specially for transfer into print media, and many of these minor artists, who in some cases had close business connections with the originators of the pictorial ideas, themselves became famous through their sometimes highly individual interpretations. For example, Italian Mannerist chiaroscuro woodcuts based on pictures by Raphael, Titian or Tintoretto, used at the time to promote the original artists, are regarded today as works of art in their own right. In fact, the disparaging word “reproductive” was never used. In Italy these works were referred to rather as “contrafatto”, which means “imitating” or, even better, “deceptively similar”, often used in connection with portraits.

“Art for Every Day” also refers finally to all forms of graphic art used to support or oppose political ideas. This art first came to the fore with the illustrations by the two Cranachs of the ideas of the Reformation. Throughout the nineteenth century, Daumier, mentioned earlier, used his artistic talents to comment on contemporary political and social issues at a time when a major part of print production was devoted to mere illustration.

For the Secessionist movements in the early twentieth century, high-quality graphic art was central to their conception of applied arts, as stated in the first issue of Ver Sacrum: “We make no distinction between ‘high art’ and ‘minor arts’, between art for the rich and art for the poor. Art is common property.” One aspect of the development of commercial art in the second half of the twentieth century that should not be ignored is the exodus of artists from Europe to America during the Nazi era. In particular, former Bauhaus artists like Josef Albers developed their ideas after emigrating to the USA, and others, like Herbert Bayer, were assimilated completely by the advertising industry, with fascinating results that were to influence artists like Andy Warhol. In the context of the “economic miracle” after the Second World War, astute artists like Picasso rediscovered and exploited the difference – and the blurred distinction – between “high art” and “minor arts” for commercial ends. While the wealthy paid large sums for paintings, the less well-off could still content themselves with “original lithographic” posters or books with original graphics. Today these prints, which were quite affordable when they were first produced, have become sought-after and often expensive works of art.