Alfred Frank

Biography

Posters. Born 28 May 1884 in Lahr, Baden. 1898-1902: student of chromolithography at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Lahr. 1903-5: printer in Lahr. From 1906: member of the Social Democratic Party. -1906-8, 1911-12: further studies at the Leipzig Akademie für graphische Künste und Buchgewerbe. 1915-18: military service as a cartographer in Flanders and France. 1919: became member of the Communist Party; his politics were actively for the Left and the proletarian class struggle. 1922-33: illustrated for the journal Sächsischen Arbeiterzeitung. 1934: in concentration camp for six months. 23 November 1944: sentenced to death for high treason, his wife Gertrud to six years imprisonment. Frank died 12 January 1945 in Dresden, shot by the Gestapo as an antifascist.

Writings about

  • Vollmer, 1955
  • Hellmut Rademacher, ‘Zur Situation des Maiplakates’, Bildende Kunst 5, 1976, pp. 210-13
  • Hellmut Rademacher (intro.), Plakat Kunst im Klassen Kampf, Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1976 (posters of the Weimar Republic, 1924-32)
  • Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, Munich/Leipzig: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1990-., 2005.

Exhibitions

  • Leipzig, 1946 (memorial)