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WALTER DEXEL (1890-1973)
19
•
VERWENDE STETS NUR GAS. 1924.
19x25 inches, 48
1
/
4
x63
1
/
2
cm.
Condition A: vertical and horizontal folds. Paper.
A painter, typographer, graphic designer and teacher, Dexel was appointed as the director of the Art
Union in Jena, a central German university town. Closely associated with the Bauhaus, he became one
of the most prominent practitioners of Contstructivism. Here, promoting the use of gas [“Always use
gas for cooking, baking, heating, lighting / because it is practical, clean, inexpensive / Saves work,
time, money”], one sees the confluence of art and commerce, wherein the most mundane of advertise-
ments can be presented in an elevated manner. Dexel’s strict constructivist style “used exclusively
typography and abstract geometrical markers” (Avant Garde p. 64). He eschewed pictorial imagery for
the “the use of ornament based entirely on the precise geometric forms of the rectangle and the circle,
and the almost exclusive use of a geometrically based sans-serif type” (Word & Image p. 56). MOMA
303.1937, Word & Image p. 64, Modern Poster p. 108, Avant Garde p. 152 Weill p. 152, Euro Deco
p. 208.
[15,000/20,000]