Hans Gaensslen

Biography

Publicity, packaging, trademarks, textiles. Born 5 June 1900 in Heidelberg. Studied at the Karlsruhe Landeskunstschule; his teacher of commercial art was Wilhelm Schnarrenberger. From 1921: freelanced, worked for a printing firm in Vienna, then worked in Munich and Berlin. By 1936: art director of a studio in Stuttgart. 1949-65: director of the advertising class at the Karlsruhe Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste. 1950s: wrote technical books on colour printing. 1961-5: Rector, Karlsruhe Staatliche Akademie. Died 2 June 1981 in Hödingen/Bodensee.

Writings by

  • ABC by K&E, Stuttgart: Berliner Union, 1951
  • ‘The standardization of the colors of printing ink’, Gg, Nov. 1958, pp. 42-6
  • Graphik – Druck (Graphics – Printing), Ravensburg: Maier, 1958 (in German, English, French, Spanish)
  • Das grosse Dreifarben-Mischbuch (The Grand Book of Three-Colour Blending), Ravensburg: Maier, 1959 (in German, English, French, Spanish)
  • (with Walter Tötsch, Magdalena Sordo)Polyvinylchlorid, Cologne, 1990 (also Polyvinylchloride, Elsevier, c1992).

Writings about

  • Willi Siegle, ‘Hans Gaensslen, Stuttgart’, Gg, Aug. 1936, pp. 33-9
  • Eberhard Hölscher, ‘Zweifarbige Plakate’, Graphik, 4, 1949, pp. 155-63
  • E. Hölscher, ‘Advertising art in post-war Germany’, Graphis 34, 1951, pp. 58-79
  • Ludwig Ebenhöh, ‘Hans Gaensslen, Karlsruhe’, Gg, Jan. 1953, pp. 8-13
  • Gerd Voss, ‘Gedanken zur Versicherungswerbung’ (insurance advertising), Graphik, 1955, 3, pp. 128-32, esp. p. 128 (trademark)
  • brief biography, Gg, Nov. 1958, p. 63
  • note on HG’s Das grosse Dreifarben-Mischbuch, in Gg, Aug. 1959, p. 63
  • E. Hölscher, ‘A new German TV-station symbol’ (competition), Gg, June 1963, pp. 54-6
  • AKL, 2005.

Exhibitions

  • Pforzheim, 1975
  • Salem-Neufrach, 1980.