EMIL RUDOLPH WEISS (1875-1942) DIE-INSEL. Circa 1899. 331/4x241/4 inches. Kunstdruckerei 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 with 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 was a Munich-based publication, which debuted in 1899. Although it only lasted until 1901 it is considered one of the most important magazines published during its era. Not only was its content of the highest literary standards, featuring the works of such authors as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg and Frank Wedekind, but also graphically, under the art direction of Peter Behrens, it was revolutionary. The poster itself is a fairy-tale fantasy of an island seemingly floating amidst decorative motifs, in a style that must certainly have influenced the psychedelic artists in San Francisco in the 1960s. Rademacher p. 44, DFP III 3380, Kunst, Kommerz, Visonen p. 56.
