George Salter (5 October 1897 – 31 October 1967), born Georg Salter, was an originally German, and from 1940 onwards an American book cover designer. He revolutionized cover design for books. He claimed worldwide fame for his design for
Alfred Döblin
Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...
s ''
Berlin Alexanderplatz
''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' () is a 1929 novel by Alfred Döblin. It is considered one of the most important and innovative works of the Weimar Republic. In a 2002 poll of 100 noted writers the book was named among the top 100 books of all time.
...
''.
Life
Georg Salter was born in
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
, the child of a Hamburg musician. In the year of his birth, his parents converted from Judaism to Christian faith. With his parents and three siblings he moved to Berlin. After finishing school and serving in the military, he studied in the art craft school in Berlin. 1921, he began work as set designer. Starting in 1927, he started working as designer for the publisher ''
Die Schmiede''.
Salter taught at the Municipal Art School in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
in the early 1930s, where he taught designer
Hans Barschel.
In November 1934 Salter emigrated to the US and started living in New York, where he immediately began to design book jackets for US publishers. He became an American citizen in 1940.
" target="_blank" class="mw-redirect" title=" External links
* [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?31131 Deutsche Ausgaben des ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction''"> External links
Deutsche Ausgaben des ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction''
Titelliste in der ''Internet Speculative Fiction Database''wellesley.edu/German/GeorgeSalter/Documents/bio
Author: Thomas S. Hansen, Dept. of German, Wellesley College (last modified October 28, 2004). Retrieved 2013-12-21. He created the covers for Carl Zuckmayers ''The Moons Ride Over'' (1937) and William Shirers ''Berlin Diary'' (1941), among others. In 1938, he started leading the design department of Mercury Publications, and in the decade that followed, designed 185 book covers and around 30 magazine covers.
Salter was married to Agnes O'Shea and had one daughter, Janet. He died in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on October 31, 1967.
Literature
* Thomas S. Hansen: ''Classic Book Jackets. The Design Legacy of George Salter''. Princeton Architectural Press, New York: 2005
References
External links
George Salter cover galleryGeorge Salter and the Art of the Dust Jacket (at Powell's Books)The Library of Book Designs by George Salter (1897-1967)at the
Leo Baeck Institute, New York
The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking J ...
George Salter Papersa
the NewberryGeorge Salter papersat the
Mortimer Rare Book Collection
The Mortimer Rare Book Collection (MRBC) is the rare books collection of Smith College. Along with the Sophia Smith Collection and Smith College Archives, it makes up Smith College Special Collections. The collection supports both general researc ...
, Smith College Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salter, George
1897 births
1967 deaths
American designers
Book designers
Artists from Berlin
Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States