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The English version of the iconic Der Mensch als Industriepalast poster (first issued in 1926), the most famous illustration from Kahn's Das Leben des Menschen (1922-31). It is a pioneering example of early information design. Kahn, a German gynaecologist, was "arguably one of the most successful popular science writers internationally between 1920 and 1960" (Borck, p. 495). His heavily illustrated books combined science with the zeitgeist of Weimar Germany: new technologies, rapid industrialization, and the Bauhaus and Dada movements. Das Leben des Menschen was Kahn's greatest achievement, a copiously illustrated five-volume set on human anatomy and physiology which took nearly a decade to complete. Der Mensch als Industriepalast visually summarizes the book and functions as an iconographic microcosm of its content, "thus encapsulating Kahn's explanatory strategy. The poster shows the human body as an assembly line in an industrialised workspace, packed with technology and populated, according to the division of labour, by anonymous workers and white-collar members of the modern society. The image did not simply compare the body to an industrial plant metaphorically - it directly represented every organ and bodily system with a technical analogue topographically proportionate in size and location" (ibid., pp. 462-3). Rössler notes that there were an unknown number of translations from the original German poster, including into English and Arabic (p. 32). WorldCat locates only two institutional holdings of the English poster: the Wellcome Library and the University of Colorado Boulder. These are variously dated 1930 and 1939 and published either by Fricke and Co. or Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, an imprint of the former. The Wellcome copy has a pasted imprint label of George Phillip & Son, Ltd, demonstrating that it was printed in Germany but distributed in England. The top pole of the mount bears a metal plaque reading "H. K. Lewis & Co., Ltd. Osteology & Anatomical Models, 136 Gower Street, London, W.C.1". Founded in 1844 and active until 1997, Lewis & Co. was a respected publisher and supplier of medical and scientific works. Cornelius Borck, "Living Ambiguity: Speculative Bodies of Science in Weimar Culture", in Alexei Kojevnikov, ed., Weimar Culture and Quantum Mechanics, 2011; Patrick Rössler, "'Das Buch über Dich'. Zur Editionsgeschichte von Fritz Kahns 'Das Leben des Menschen'", Rubrik, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018. Long portrait-oriented chromolithograph poster (960 x 480 mm), linen-backed, attached at head and foot with pink ribbon and nails to wooden poles for display. Extremities frayed and nicked, surface lightly soiled and creased but colours remaining bright, a few closed tears neatly repaired, two patches of damp staining on verso resulting in small loss to linen (not affecting recto image), top edge expertly reattached to pole: in very good condition.
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