Die Sechs (The Six)

Biography

A group of six Munich poster artists, who in 1914 formed a collective advertising agency of that name: Franz Paul Glass (1886-1964), F. Leonhard Heubner (1886-1974), Carl Moos (1878-1959), Emil Preetorius (1883-1974), Max Schwarzer (1882-1955) and Valentin Zietara (1883-1935). All had designed for, or were still working for, the journals Jugend and Simplicissimus. Their first group exhibition took place in 1914, co-inciding with the announcement of the formation of the agency in the Yearbook of the Deutscher Werkbund. The Zurich exh. cat. of 1915 (see below) contains brief autobiographies of the original six. The association was revived in 1924 but only Glass and Zietara remained; the others were Hans Ibe, Max Eschle, Otto Ottler and Tommi Parzinger.

Writings about

  • Der Verkehr. Jahrbuch deutschen Werkbundes 1914, Jena: Diederichs, 1914 (posters by each
  • introduction by G.J. Wolf, Munich)
  • Das Plakat, 1915 (posters by each)
  • Die Sechs (exh. cat.), Zurich: Kunstgewerbemuseums der Stadt Zürich, 1915
  • M. Glass, ‘Die 6 in Wort und Bild’, Gg, Jahrg. 2 (1925/6?), v. 4, pp. 49-55 (showing work of The Six)
  • Walter F. Schubert, ‘Die 6’, Die Reklame, May 1925, pp. 492-7
  • DdW, 1927, pp. 31-7
  • Ruth Malhorta, ‘Die ersten Plakate der Gruppe der “Sechs”, 1914’, Jahrbuch des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 1983, pp. 231-3.

Exhibitions

  • Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich, 1915.