Lot 224: KAHN, Fritz (1888-1968). Der Mensch als Industriepalast . Stuttgart: Fricke & Co., [1926].

KAHN, Fritz (1888-1968). Der Mensch als Industriepalast. Stuttgart: Fricke & Co., [1926].

Color lithograph poster, 38½ x 19 inches. (With archival backing, a few minor areas of color rubbed where originally folded.)

As a gynecologist in Berlin, Fritz Kahn became involved with writing and illustrating articles on popular science. One of his most well-known works, Das Leben des Menschen, a five volume work on the human body, was published between 1922 and 1932. In this poster he depicts the human body as a factory. Shortly before Hitler came on power in 1933, Fritz Kahn traveled to Palestine. Because of the political situation in Germany, he settled in Jerusalem. In 1939, Fritz Kahn left Palestine for France and Portugal before he was able to immigrate to the United States early in 1941 with the help of humanitarians Varian Fry and Albert Einstein.

Following his arrival in New York, Fritz Kahn was not only able to continue his career as a writer and illustrator, but was viewed as one of the world's foremost popular writers on medical and biological subjects. Several of his publications were widely translated. He lectured and appeared on radio broadcasts where he discussed medical and popular scientific questions. The function of the human body was a common topic in most of Fritz Kahn's writings, including such best-selling illustrated works as Our Sex Life (1939), Man in Structure and Function (1943), and The Human Body (1966). Sappol, Dream Anatomy, pp. 58-59.