Biography
Woodcuts, lettering, book design, typography, wall hangings, sculpture. Born 14 January 1923 in Leipzig. Apprenticed as cartographer at the Bibliographical Institute, Leipzig. Studied at the Academy, Leipzig. Military service as a cartographer; met Rudo Spemann who was also a military cartographer and who interested Schmidt in lettering. C1945: worked in Leipzig as a cartographer. 1947-51: studied lettering and book design at the Leipzig Akademie für Buchgewerbe und Graphik: a teacher was Egon Pruggmayer. Schmidt also studied typesetting, printing, bookbinding and woodcuts. From 1951: typographer at the Eggebrecht-Presse, Mainz. From 1957: taught typography at the Werkkunstschule (later: Landeskunstschule für Buchgewerbe), Mainz. 1963-83: taught book design and lettering at the Werkkunstschule (later; Hochschule für Gestaltung), Offenbach a.M. From 1980s: produced sculptural lettering (see Schmidt, 1988, below). 1988: living in Offenbach a.M.
Writings by
- Texts in , Lettering by Hans Schmidt (exh. cat.), Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, and Offenbach a.M.: Klingspor Museum, 1988.
Writings about
- , 1962
- , 1963, pp. 248-9
- , Lettering by Hans Schmidt (exh. cat.), Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, and Offenbach a.M.: Klingspor Museum, 1988 (includes exhs., group exhs.)
- ‘20th century German Lettering’, Dot the I, London: Letter Exchange, 1991
- , Schriftliches von Hans Schmidt, Bergisch Gladbach, 1992.
- , ‘Alphabetic reliefs’, novum, April 1971, pp. 34-7
Exhibitions
- Klingspor Museum, Offenbach a.M., 1956, 1959, 1961
- Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1961
- Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, 1963
- Klingspor Museum, Offenbach a.M., 1970
- University of Mainz, 1981
- Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, 1988, then to Klingspor Museum, Villa Zander, Bergisch-Gladbach, then 1988-89 to University of Texas at Austin, San Francisco Public Library, Creative Resource Gallery, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, Missouri, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY.