3842 - Hugo Steiner-Prag, on Prosper Mérimée’s *Carmen*

Hugo Steiner-Prag, on Prosper Mérimée’s *Carmen* Series of 20 lithographs on Prosper Mérimée’s *Carmen*, published by Propylaen-Verlag Berlin, here unbound and on different paper, probably proofs, slight signs of wear, sheet dimensions approx. 35 x 21.5 cm. Artist information: originally Hugo Steiner, he adopted the name ‘Steiner-Prag’ from 1902 onwards, after his place of birth, German-Jewish painter, illustrator, book designer, graphic artist, teacher and set designer (1880, Prague - 1945, New York); initially a student at the Prague Academy; studied from 1901 to 1903 at the Munich Academy under Franz von Stuck, Johann Caspar Herterich and Peter von Halm; from 1903 to 1905 he was a lecturer at the Teaching and Experimental Workshop for Fine and Applied Arts in Munich, and from 1905 to 1907 he taught at the School of Applied Arts in Barmen; acquired German citizenship in 1907; from 1907, he was artistic director of the Propyläen publishing house in Berlin and a professor at the Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig, where he taught, amongst others, Erich Ohser (e.o.plauen), from 1910 also worked as a set designer for theatres in Leipzig, 1919-27: President of the International Book Exhibitions in Leipzig and organiser of the book sections at the German exhibitions in Barcelona, Lyon, Paris, Pittsburgh and New York; concurrently Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the German Museum of Books and Writing and a member of the Saxon State Office for Applied Arts, Honorary Chairman of the Federation of German Commercial Artists, member of the German Werkbund, Executive Committee member of the Association of German Book Trade Artists, member of the German Artists’ Association in Weimar and the Association of German Artists in Bohemia; in 1933, dismissed from his post as professor and returned to Prague, where he founded the graphic design training centre ‘Officina Pragensis’; undertook study tours through Bohemia and the Carpathians; following the annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he emigrated to Stockholm, where he became Director of the ‘Skolan för Bok- och Reklamkonst’; in 1941 to the USA; from 1942, worked in New York as a professor at the “Division of Graphic Arts” at New York University and as a designer; member of the “American Institute of Graphic Arts”, Source: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Dressler, the register of the Munich Academy, “Franz von Stuck and his pupils” and Wikipedia.