Lot 6: POSTER: EMIL RUDOLPH WEISS (1875-1942). DIE-I

EMIL RUDOLPH WEISS (1875-1942) DIE-INSEL. 1899.
33 1/4x24 1/4 inches, 84 1/2x61 1/2 cm. Kunstlerbund Karlsruhe.
Condition B+: loss in upper left corner; foxing in margins and image; tears in margins, some affecting image. Paper.
As a regular contributor to Jugend and Pan, Emil Weiss was heavily involved in the birth of Jugendstil in Germany. He had studied painting in Paris, where one of his fellow students was Toulouse-Lautrec, but he found his lasting fame as a designer and a typographer. Die Insel, a Munich-based publication, debuted in 1899. Although it only lasted until 1901 it is considered one of the most important magazines published during its era. Its content was of the highest literary standards, featuring the works of such authors as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg and Frank Wedekind, and graphically, under the art direction of Peter Behrens, it was revolutionary. This poster is a fairy-tale fantasy of an island seemingly floating amidst decorative motifs, in a style that must have influenced the psychedelic artists in San Francisco in the 1960s. Rademacher p. 69, DFP III 3380, Kunst, Kommerz, Visonen p. 56.