ESSEN, GERMANY.- From 27 January to 25 March 2007 the Deutsche Plakat Museum (German Poster Museum) Essen is showing the exhibition: Zeitzeiger. Plakate aus zwei Jahrhunderten (Time Trackers. Vintage Posters from Two Centuries) with 288 exhibits in the Museum Folkwang. Some works from this collection, which is unique to Europe, will be shown for the first time.

When Essen becomes the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2010, the German Poster Museum Essen will reopen in the new extension to the Museum Folkwang.

January 2007 • The exhibition Zeitzeiger. Plakate aus zwei Jahrhunderten (Time Trackers. Vintage Posters from Two Centuries), on show in the Museum Folkwang from 27 January to 25 March, is exclusively compiled from the collection of the German Poster Museum, which comprises some 340,000 works. A selection of 288 exhibits, some of which are very rare, document the development of German posters and their forerunners in a European context between 1721 and 1939. Some of these works will be exhibited publicly for the first time.

Hartwig Fischer, the Director of the Museum Folkwang said: “The German Poster Museum owns the largest poster collection in Europe and in its breadth and quality is one of the most important in Germany. We are delighted that within the Museum Folkwang a suitable forum has finally been found for the German Poster Museum, which also ensures the collection’s future.”

René Grohnert, the Director of the German Poster Museum emphasised: “The focus of the presentation is not on the individual poster but on documentation of the genre’s crucial lines of development during the specified time period. The exhibition offers the public an extensive overview of the dynamic development of the poster.”

The exhibition is divided into five large sections:

I. Forerunners and Early Posters
This section documents in three groups the early days of the poster. Ancestors of the poster (leaflets, notices etc.) are shown along with prints (illustrations, caricatures etc.), which reflect the use of the new medium in the street environment. The first large-format and coloured sheets (primarily for indoor use) complete this section.

II. Initial Highlights in the Development of the Poster
France around 1900, posters by Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec amongst others form the first highlight in the development of the poster. The influence on Germany and other countries was enormous, as examples from Great Britain, the USA, Belgium and Italy prove.

III. German Posters in the Pre-War Era
Considerably influenced by French, English and Belgian posters, the German poster at first began to develop differently according to place. Examples from the turn of the century (19th/20th century) from Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Krefeld, Düsseldorf and Darmstadt provide an overview. Mainly in Munich and especially in Berlin an independent and innovative development of the poster took place from around 1905. This development in turn influenced France and especially the USA.

IV. Posters in World War I
The posters of the then opposing countries show considerable differences in tackling the task of canvassing support for the war as well as easing the way of its socially intolerable consequences. Examples from Germany, Austria/Hungary, France, England, Italy and the USA show a cross section of the new poster imagery, which continued after World War I by transforming into political posters.

V. A New Diversity. Posters from the 1920s and 1930s
The development of the poster is characterised by the almost simultaneous appearance of opposing visual concepts of development. By using an expressive imagery posters from the immediate post-war period formulate the new genre of the political poster. The same applies in culture, especially film. Bauhaus-influenced design, the “New Typography”, the increased use of photography and photomontage and the spreading of new printing techniques (offset printing) generated a new type of poster. Simultaneously developments continued in the areas of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and ornamentation. A final view is of the following period, documenting posters from the year 1932 and already auguring the coming era of great historical catastrophes in Europe.

In 2010 the collection of the German Poster Museum Essen, which comprises some 340,000 works, will get its own exhibition space in the then completed new extension to the Museum Folkwang. The exhibition in the Museum Folkwang, which begins on 27 January 2007, is a foretaste of a groundbreaking new presentation of the collection of the German Poster Museum in one of the major venues in the Ruhr area.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with contributions by Bernhard Denscher, Jürgen Döring, René Grohnert, Lars Herzog-Wodtke, Anita Kühnel, Hellmut Rademacher, Bettina Richter and Dieter Vorsteher, published by Hermann-Schmidt-Verlag, Mainz, at a price of € 29,80 (museum edition).