progress of the industrial age. Berlin businesses routinely sponsored poster
competitions as a means of identifying new talent for the expanding
advertising industry. When Bernhard was around sixteen he decided to
enter a competition sponsored by the Priester Match company and judged
by some of the leading promoters of the burgeoning poster movement. Two
hundred Marks (about $50) would be awarded to the winner, but more
important, the winning entry would be printed and pasted around Berlin.
Bernhard jumped at the opportunity, and, with little time to produce his
entry, he reportedly made some crucial, instinctive design decisions.
Using paint and brush, he laid down a brown/maroon
background—an unusual choice at that time; most posters used either black
or bright primaries—on which he rendered an ashtray with a pair of
wooden matches along the side. Seeing that the ashtray needed some
additional graphic device to balance the composition, he drew in a cigar.
Logically, from the cigar wafted smoke, and from the smoke, what else, but
a few scantily clad Jugendstil dancing girls. The ashtray needed grounding,
so he painted in a checkered tablecloth. At the top of the poster in block
letters he rendered the word Priester.The original sketch does not exist, but
what a mélange it must have been. Nevertheless, proud of his work, he
showed it to his mentor at the time, a political caricaturist, who
congratulated Bernhard on the wonderful cigarposter. Bernhard
immediately realized his error and proceeded to remake the poster by
painting out the cigar, then the smoke, then the ashtray, then the
tablecloth, leaving only a pair of red matches with yellow tips and the
brand name, Priester, in gothic lettering. He met the competition deadline
without a moment to spare.
Upon seeing it for the first time, the judges, feeling it was too
empty, threw it unceremoniously into the garbage can, where it would have
remained had not the most important judge arrived late. Burly, bald, and
jocular, Ernst Growald was the sales manager for the Hollerbaum and
Schmidt lithography firm, which was widely admired as Berlin’s leading
advertising poster printer—a kind of proto-advertising agency. Growald
was a man of unique vision who understood the critical role that
advertising could play in Germany’s expanding economy. He also had good
taste, and, not seeing any other noteworthy entries on the judges table,
turned his wayward eyes to the artwork in the trash. Removing it, he hung
it on the wall, and was reported to have exclaimed: “This is my first prize.
This is genius!” Bernhard won the contest. With Growald as agent and
broker, Bernhard never again wanted for paying work.
The Priester poster was a great success for the company, too. In a
highly competitive marketplace the message was so simple that it
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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