Paul Koch

Biography

Born 1906 in Leipzig, son of Rudolf Koch. By the age of 19 he was a member of his father’s Offenbacher Werkstatt. He later wrote: ‘Though I originally wanted to be a physician, the influence of my father…accounts for my becoming a printer; Dr Karl Klingspor suggested that I learn punch-cutting; and to Mr Victor Hammer’s advice I owe my having learned also justification and hand-casting.’ (The Dolphin, no. 1, 1933). 1926-31: punch-cutter and type-founder at Victor Hammer’s private press in Florence. He was a very fine punch-cutter - cutting types for Koch, Herbert Post, Berthold Wolpe and Ernst Schneidler – and printer, founding the Werkstatt ‘Haus zum Fürsteneck’ in Frankfurt am Main in 1933 with Fritz Arnold, a master printer and colleague from the Offenbacher Werkstatt. Music printing, his expert speciality, earned him deserved national and international attention. 1935-6: taught the foundation class at the Handwerker- und Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M., and led a student study tour to Florence. He died in the war while on active service in Poland in January 1945. Photographs of the Haus zum Fürsteneck, destroyed in a bombing raid on 22 March 1944, appear in John Dreyfus and Knut Erichson (eds.), ABC-XYZapf: Fifty Years in Alphabet Design, London: Wynkyn de Worde Society, and Offenbach: Bund Deutscher Buchkünstler, 1989, pp. 30, 32 and 113. The many autobiographical versions by Hermann Zapf, who spent some months in Koch’s workshop in 1938, include references to this period.

Another Paul Koch wrote Kinderschrift und Charakter, Iserlohn: Brause, 1932.

Writings by

  • ‘The making of printing types’ (tr. Otto Fuhrmann), The Dolphin, no. 1, 1933, pp. 24-57
  • ‘Neugestaltung des Notenbildes in Handschrift und Druck’, Imprimatur, 1933, pp. 174-6, includes bibliography of music publications issued by PK, 1923-33, plus 4 pp. supplement: Brahms centenary
  • Helmut Walcha (1907-91), Motette fr vierstimmigen gemischten Chor, 1934
  • ‘Schrift und Wappenkunst in Florenz. Bericht von einer Studienreise im Oktober 1934’, DzS, July 1935, pp. 40-47 (inc. announcement card)
  • ‘Schrift als Flächenmuster’, DzS, Jan. 1936, pp. 13-16 (his teaching at the Städelschule)
  • ‘Schriftaufgabe in den Vorklassen der Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M. – Volkslieder’, DzS, Jan. 1937, pp. 33-7
  • Franken / das Gesicht einer Landschaft, Obergau: BDM, 1938/9
  • Notenschreibbüchlein, Wolfenbüttel/Berlin: G. Kallmeyer Verlag, 1939
  • ‘Die Musiknoten im Buchdruck’, Klimschs Jahrbuch, 1940, pp. 61-6, plus supplement
  • ‘Zwei Notenhandschriften von Hermann Zapf’, DzS, July 1940, pp. 16-17.

Writings about

  • Paul Stern, ‘Neue Versuche zur Gewinnung eines besseren Schriftbildes unserer Musiknoten’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1933, pp. 232-6
  • G. Haupt, ‘Ein Notendruck’, AfB, v. 11/12, 1933, pp. 406-8, includes list of PK’s music publications
  • Hans Bockwitz, ‘Junge deutsche Büchkunstler’, AfB, Nov. 1934, pp. 699-784, esp. pp. 705 (brief biog.), p. 715 (cover of 1934 Typographische Monatsblätter), p. 739 (certificate)
  • G. Haupt, ‘Notendruck’, Schrift und Handwerk (Philobiblon special number), 1934, pp. 34-6, 40
  • Otto Reicher, ‘Die Schrift und Druckwerkstatt im Haus Fürsteneck Frankfurt am Main’, TM/SGM (special number), VIII, 1934 (includes list of PK’s work, 1923-34)
  • J.O. Bringezu, ‘Der Notenschreiber Paul Koch’, AfB, Aug. 1935, pp. 456-7 plus inset
  • Alfred Mahlau, ‘Deutsche Buchkunst’, Klimschs Jahrbuch, 1935, pp. 43-51
  • ‘Christmas and New Year prints [cards]’, AfB, Jan. 1936, pp. 31-42, esp. p. 33
  • Helene de Bary, ‘Notenschrift – Notendruck’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1940, pp. 85-92 plus 4p inset
  • Vollmer, 1956
  • John Dreyfus and Knut Erichson (eds.), ABC-XYZapf: Fifty Years in Alphabet Design, London: Wynkyn de Worde Society, and Offenbach: Bund Deutscher Buchkünstler, 1989 (English and German texts) includes Otto S. Fabricus, ‘Die Werkstatt “Haus zum Fürsteneck” in Frankfurt’, pp. 30-33, and Will Carter, ‘It started in Frankfurt in 1938’, pp. 113-15
  • I.J. Tamari, ‘“Kusari-Hebräisch” – der Anfang einer Druckschrift von Henri Friedlaender und Paul Koch’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1992, pp. 309-18
  • GC, 2000, especially pp. 192-3 (includes bibliography)
  • Sebastian Carter, ‘The Incunabula of the Rampant Lions Press’, Matrix 22, Winter 2002
  • Ronald Salter, Fritz Kredel. Das buchkünstlerisch Werk in Deutschland und Amerika, Rudolstadt: burgart, 2003
  • Jerry Cinamon, ‘Paul Koch, Master Printer of Music’, The Private Library, Vol. 2:3, Autumn 2009 (issued 2010), lists Paul Koch’s published work.

Exhibitions

  • Munich, 1934
  • Florence, 1935
  • ‘Junge deutsche Buchkünstler’, Leipzig, 1935
  • Kunsthalle, Bern, 1943.

Collections

  • (Haus zum Fürsteneck) Klingspor Museum, Offenbach a.M.