Topic:

The History and Practice of

European Design Collections

Brief description:

I. The Graphic Design Collection of the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz History, Structure, and Development
II. From Art to Visual CommunicationThe History of the Poster in Europe from 1890 to 2000: Key Developments and Their Theoretical Foundations
III. Visual Languages and the Influence of the Zeitgeist: The Example of Advertising for Electrical Engineering
IV. Four Graphic Designers – Four Paths to the Poster · Julius Klinger (1876–1942) · A. M. Mouron: Cassandre (1901–1968) · A(ngiolo) G(iuseppe) Fronzoni (1923–2002) · Armin Hofmann (1920–2020)

Biography:

Anita Kühnel was born in 1951. She studied history of art at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. After her exam she was a scholarship holder there for research on the theory of painterly graphic art. From 1978 until 1992, she worked as curator at the Print Collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. From 1992 until 2016 Anita Kühnel was the curator of the Graphic Design Collection at the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz. She curated various exhibitions and published texts and catalogues about European drawings and prints from the 19th and 20th century, about graphic designers and the history of posters and graphic design. She also worked on contemporary painting and drawing and gave lectures about the history of German posters. Her exhibitions and publications include Julius Klinger: Plakatkünstler und Zeichner (Berlin, 1997); Verführungen: Plakate aus Österreich und Deutschland von 1914 bis 1945 (in cooperation with the Austrian National Library and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, exhibited in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg, 1998/99); Die Poesie des Konkreten: Plakat und Graphik der Kasseler Schule (2000); Ein Jahrhundert im Weltformat: Schweizer Plakate von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin, 2001); Hintersinnig und unverbraucht: Die Bilderwelt des Helmut Brade (included in Helmut Brade: Plakate 3, Halle (Saale), 2003); Nicolaus Ott + Bernard Stein: Grafikdesign (Berlin, 2008); Welt aus Schrift: Das 20. Jahrhundert in Europa und den USA (in collaboration with Michael Lailach and Jan May, Berlin, 2010); Ich hab geträumt, ich wär ein Hund, der träumt: Bildgeschichten von Hans Hillmann und Jiři Salamoun (Berlin, 2011); Avantgarde! (in collaboration with Jutta Weber, Berlin, 2014); and Schrift, Bild, Zeichen: Werbegrafik in Deutschland 1945–2015 (Berlin, 2016).