Date: 1920 Size: Image: 8.5 x 9.25 inches, Framed Size: 15.5 x 17 inches Artist: Julius Klinger
This exceptionally rare piece has an exceptionally rare provenance: When Klinger came to the US to look for work, he stayed with his agent, Gus Nilson. When Klinger left the US, he left behind a small portfolio of his work. This proud rooster, crafted in gold ink and proudly carrying a fountain pen (much as Klinger did) might be seen as a kind of avian self-portrait. In perfect condition, framed.
Julius Klinger was an Austrian artist of Jewish decent who had, in Vienna in 1923, an art school and studio where he and his students taught graphic and marketing design. Considered by many to be the father of what is now commonly-termed 'branding', he used graphics and graphic design to convey the message of the brand and create 'brand equity' therein.
He was the first to use a logo not only on a product itself, but also on buildings, billboard, and advertisements - essentially creating a lasting and unforgettable image of a brand for consumers.
In Klinger's 1923 presentation of his studio and its designs, he wrote:
"The moving spirit of Vienna poster-designers whose work is reproduced in this production, is Julius Klinger, at once the oldest and best known among them. For more than a quarter of a century he has devoted himself to this special line of art; he was twenty when he began and is now forty-eight. From the first he gave up all his time and thought to his work, for he is a poster-designer body and soul. His entire cosmos is bound up with it. America is the land of his heart's desire. But for him America is but a theoretical conception for he has never had the good luck to see it for himself and experience its life. It may be that just for this reason his longings are the more intense. America as he conceives it means spacious style, World Power and an eye for the future. Klinger's posters bear relation to life as it really is. He knows that in the poster, this intellectual artifice, he can express the most trivial things of everyday life. This belief has enabled him to gather around him a number of congenial spirits and his Americanized ideas in weary, stale Europe are finding more and more supporters. Klinger is not unknown in America. His posters have been frequently reproduced there and have gained much appreciation from connoisseurs for the purity of their lines."
