George Salter: Printed Sources, Archives, Contact
Biography
Biography
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  Sources, Archives
Deutsche Version

 

This website does not present an exhaustive survey of Salter's contributions to the field of book design. Interested readers are urged to consult printed sources. One richly illustrated, dual-language book that focuses on Salter's German period is by Jürgen Holstein, Georg Salter: Bucheinbände und Schutzumschläge aus Berliner Zeit, 1922-1934; Georg Salter: Book Bindings and Dust Jackets from the Berlin Period, 1922-1934 (Berlin: Jürgen Holstein, 2003). This volume includes a thorough bibliography of literature on the art of the book jacket.

A further title offers a comprehensive presentation of Salter's life and work, covering both the German and American designs as well as a few others not done for the book trade: Classic Book Jackets: The Design Legacy of George Salter (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005) by Thomas S. Hansen. This work includes a complete catalogue of Salter's book designs arranged by period and alphabetically by publisher. It is thus useful to the bibliographer, book dealer, and collector.

For more information or to purchase a copy of the book, please click on book jacket.

Classic Book Jackets

I welcome suggestions and reactions to this website. Contact.

The information included below offers a selection of bibliographical information drawn from Classic Book Jackets: The Design Legacy of George Salter.


Archives:

  • Newberry Library (Chicago, Illinois), John M. Wing Collection. Papers, 1919-1967.
    The papers consist mostly of art, correspondence, contracts, and printed materials relating to design projects executed in New York. Included are many original works and drafts of unpublished projects.
  • Neilson Library, Smith College (Northampton, Massachusetts)
    The collection is rich in books designed by Salter and books related to his profes-sional interest, together with proofs, papers, and ephemera relating to his book designs from his German and New York periods
  • Kunstbibliothek Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
    A small selection from Salter’s work placed there by his family for study purposes. The pieces duplicate material in the two American libraries, including author’s proofs from his German and New York periods and some photographs.


    Permissions:

    All images on this website are used with kind permission of Janet Salter Rosenberg, daughter of George Salter.


    Works by George Salter:
  • [Kredel, Fritz] The Typophiles Welcome Fritz Kredel. N. Y.: The Typophiles, 1938. This collection of finely printed leaves contains texts lettered by Salter. See Image Gallery: Miscellaneous Lettering Jobs
  • Salter, George. “50 Books of 1965.” Book Production Industry, 42:5 (May 1966): 48-52.
  • “Book Jacket Designs 1940-1947. Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts. 6:1(1948): 13-23.
  • “Book Jackets and the 1935 Book Jacket Show,” Publishers’ Weekly, 77:22 (June 1, 1935): 2152-2154.
  • “Calligraphy in current Advertising and Publishing.” Co-author with Paul Standard. Print: a Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts. 3:4 (Fall 1945): 41-52. Illustration by Salter, p. 49.
  • “Cooper Union Calligraphy.” Co-author with Paul Standard. Print: a Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, 9:3 (1957): 25-47. Presentation of works by students of Salter and Standard.
  • “Designing Book Jackets.” The Fifth Advertising and Publishing Production Yearbook 1939. The Reference Manual of the Graphic Arts (N. Y.: Colton Press, 1939): 48a-48h. See Categories of Design
  • “Ernst Schneidler.” Sixth Annual Exhibition, Book Jacket Designers Guild 1953. N. Y.: A-D Gallery, 1953 [unpaginated].
  • “Fancy Penmanship, 1854.” Review of George J. Becker, Ornamental Penmanship. A-D (Dec.-Jan. 1941-1942), 8:2: 56-57.
  • “Illustrators View Illustrations; Symposium.” Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, 3:3 (1943), 33-46. Contribution by Salter: 49-40.
  • “Letter, Word, and Line.” Cooper Union Art School, no. 4, n.d., 1-2 and 19-20 (unpaginated).
  • “Letter, Word, and Page.” The Bulletin of the Society for Italic Handwriting, 5:16 (Fall 1958), 10-11.
  • “The Book Jacket.” Third Annual Exhibition, Book Jacket Designers Guild 1950. N. Y.: A-D Gallery, 1950 [unpaginated].
  • “There is a Borzoi Style.” In: Portrait of a Publisher 1915-1965, II: 280-283.
  • Lettering and Calligraphy in Current Advertising and Publishing. Exhibition Catalogue prepared by George Salter and Paul Standard. May 11 through June 29, 1945, N. Y.: A-D Gallery, 1945. Catalogue designed by George Salter.
  • Typophiles. Calligraphics. Hands & Forms, rendered by Twenty-five American Scribes for the Typophiles. Bennett, Paul A., ed. Typophiles Chapbook 28. N. Y.: The Typophiles, 1955. Contains contribution by Salter.
  • Typophiles. Forty Devices from (and by) many Typophiles. Selected by O. Alfred Dickman and printed as special keepsake by Robert L. Leslie (The Composing Room). Intro. by Paul Bennett. n. d. Includes Salter’s design for letter “T”
  • Typophiles. Left to Their Own Devices. With a Salute to Typophiles Desipient by Christopher Morley. Intro. by Harry Miller Lydenberg, and a note on Building this Book by Paul Bennett. N. Y.: The Typophiles, 1937. Collection of 156 devices based on the letter “T” (same as that in Forty Devices above) contributed by 113 artists, including Salter who also designed the book jacket.


    Works about Salter:

  • Anon. [Paul Standard]. “American Jacketeer.” Review of exhibition and catalogue, George Salter. A Third of a Century of Graphic Work. N. Y.: The Composing Room, Inc. (December 1961). The Times Literary Supplement, (Jan. 19, 1962): 48.
  • Badaracco, Claire Hoertz. “Georg Salter’s Book Jacket Designs, 1925-1940.” Design Issues, 17: 3 (Summer 2001): 40-48.
  • Bennett, Paul A. “A Visit with George Salter – Designer, Calligrapher, Illustrator, and Teacher.” Publishers’ Weekly, 186:10 (Sept. 7, 1964): 82-87.
  • Bockwitz, H. “Neue Arbeiten von Georg Salter.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchs-graphik, 69: 4 (1932): 186-191.
  • Frenzel, Hermann. K. “Georg Salter.” Gebrauchsgraphik; International Advertising Art. 9:8 (1932), 2-9.
  • Grannis, Chandler. “Designers of Book Jackets: I – George Salter.” Publishers’ Weekly, (March 1, 1952): 1096-1102.
  • George Salter and his Work: Calligraphy, Book Jackets, Book Design. A Retrospective Exhi-bi-tion. October 26 through January 15, 1981. Los Angeles, California: UCLA Research Library, 1981.
  • George Salter: a Third of a Century of Graphic Work. Exhibition Catalogue, Gallery 303. N. Y.: The Composing Room, Inc. (December 1961), N. Y.: 1961. Catalogue designed by Philip Grushkin.
  • Hansen, Thomas S. Georg Salter (1897-1967). An Exhibition of Book Jackets and Designs. The Club of Odd Volumes (Boston, Massachusetts, March 2001). Catalogue of ca. 125 items. The first 25 copies numbered; five colored illustrations tipped in.
  • Hölscher, Eberhard. “Georg Salter.” Sonderdruck aus dem Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik. Reihe: “Deutsche Buchkünstler und Gebrauchsgraphiker der Gegen-wart,” 67:9 (1930), 36 pp. (unpaginated).
  • Jacobs, Sidney R. “Georg Salter: a Profile.” Publishers’ Weekly, 85:22 (June 3, 1939), 2053-2056.
  • Leslie, Robert. “Georg Salter – An Appreciation.” PM (Production Manager), 2:1 (Sept. 1935), 16-24. Includes facsimiles of Salter’s covers from 1935.
  • Schauer, Georg Kurt. “Georg Salter und die jüngste Phase des Schutzumschlags.” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (Frankfurter Ausgabe), 100 (December 16, 1957): 1525-1532.
  • Schauer, Georg Kurt. “Georg Salter. Buchgraphiker hier und drüben/Designer of Books on either Side of the Atlantic.” Gebrauchsgraphik/International Advertising Art, 28:10 (1957): 12-15.
  • Schauer, Georg Kurt. “Buchgestalter in zwei Welten.” Form und Technik, 14:12 (Dezember 1963), 689-694. Reprinted in Schauer, Von den Herbergen des Geistes, 106-113.
  • Schauer, Georg Kurt. “Der Schriftmann Georg Salter,” Der Druckspiegel, 12:10 (1957): 516-525.
  • Schauer, Georg Kurt. Von den Herbergen des Geistes. Eine Anthologie aus Versuchen. Ed. Kurt Londonberg. Krefeld: Scherpe Verlag, 1976.
  • Shaw, Paul. “Liberty with a Foundation: Georg Salter as Calligrapher.”, The Friends of Calligraphy Newsletter (San Francisco, California), 6:3 (Spring 1980): 1-7.

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  • Created By: Sara Kratzok '06 & Devyani Parameshwar '06
  • Maintained By: Author, Thomas S. Hansen, Dept. of German, Wellesley College
  • Date Created: July 2, 2004
  • Last Modified: October 28, 2004
  • Expires: August 2005