Albert Windisch (17 May 1878 – 1 April 1967) was a German painter, Academy Professor and typographer. Windisch was successful as a painter and as a typographer as well. As a painter, he preferred urban scenes and portraits and after 1945 mainly floral motifs. For Klingspor he designed in 1917 the ''Windisch cursive'' font, later he worked for the

Stempel Stempel is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Gary Stempel (born 1957), English-Panamanian football manager * Herbert Stempel (1926-2020), television game show contestant who exposed the rigging of results in the 1950s quiz sho ...

foundry.

Life

Albert was born in

Friedberg, Hesse Friedberg (; official name: ''Friedberg (Hessen)'') is a town and the capital of the Wetteraukreis district, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 26 km (16 miles) north of Frankfurt am Main. In 1966, the town hosted the sixth '' Hessentag'' state fest ...

, as a son of the bakery owner Georg Windisch Windisch who supplied the Grand Duke of Hesse and the Tsar's family during their stays in Germany. The residential and commercial building in Usagasse 14 in Friedberg hosts a bakery until today. Windisch first visited the

Royal School of Art in Berlin The Royal School of Art in Berlin (''Königliche Kunstschule zu Berlin'') was a state-sponsored art school founded in 1869. The school was founded through its association with the Prussian Academy of Arts, and after unification stood as one of Be ...

, then he studied at the

Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...

and from 1901 at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

. From 1905 he taught commercial art at the School of Applied Arts in Frankfurt and was in contact with the art historian Fritz Wichert, their correspondence is preserved. With Wichert he worked on the integration of the former School of Applied Arts (

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for thes ...

) into the

Städelschule The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...

. After the dismissal of

Willi Baumeister Willi Baumeister (22 January 1889 – 31 August 1955) was a German painter, scenic designer, art professor, and typographer. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. Life Born in ...

by the Nazis Windisch had also to teach the classes of Baumeister. Among his students were the later known as

degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

ists defamed Kurt Scheele and Moritz Coschell, and the typographer Herbert Post. To

Rudolf Koch Rudolf Koch (20 November 1876 – 9 April 1934) was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration. Commonly known for his typefaces created for the Klingspor Type Foundry, his most widely ...

and his circle he had a friendship and cooperation. Windisch was from 1913 member of the

Deutscher Werkbund The Deutscher Werkbund (English: "German Association of Craftsmen"; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern arch ...

and a member of Weimar society of bibliophiles. From 1921 he belonged to the German Confederation of commercial artist (local group Offenbach) and from 1930 he was the chairman of the Rhine-Main-group, this position he held also after 1933,Bild Index
and in this role his name is written in the imprint of a publication of a speech by Joseph Goebbels at the

Reichskulturkammer The Reich Chamber of Culture (''Reichskulturkammer'') was a government agency in Nazi Germany. It was established by law on 22 September 1933 in the course of the ''Gleichschaltung'' process at the instigation of Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels as ...

(Chamber of Culture) on November 15, 1933. Until the 1960s Windisch taught at the Städelschule. Windisch donated drawings by Wilhelm Conrad in 1958 to the Frankfurt Art Association. About his life's work, the Frankfurter Rundschau in 1958 wrote an extensive review on his 80th Birthday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on his 85th Birthday. He died in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

, aged 88.

Notes

External links

Designers. Albert Windisch
Biography on www.germandesigners.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Windisch, Albert 1878 births 1967 deaths 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters People from Friedberg, Hesse