Art

The original poster, "Man as Industrial Palace", the most famous illustration from Kahn's modernist magnum opus, Das Leben des Menschen (1922-33). With the variant imprint "aus Kahn", instead of "Beilage zu Kahn" (no priority established) and the additional following line "Offsetdruckerei Fricke & Co. Stuttgart" below. Kahn, a German gynaecologist, was arguably one of the most successful popular science writers internationally during the mid-20th century. His "recipe for success was the combination of a lucid writing style with intriguing visuals" (Borck, p. 462), and his copiously illustrated textbook Das Leben des Menschen was his greatest achievement, integrating nature and the human body inextricably with new technologies, the rapid industrialisation and technocratization of Weimar Germany, and the Bauhaus and Dada movements. "In addition to the over 1,500 images in the five volumes, the set also included an oversize poster, summarising the book by showing Man as Industrial Palace - thus encapsulating Kahn's explanatory strategy. The poster showed the human body as an assembly line in an industrialised workspace, packed with technology and populated, according to the division of labour, by anonymous workers and white-collar members of the modern society. The image did not simply compare the body to an industrial plant metaphorically - it directly represented every organ and bodily system with a technical analogue topographically proportionate in size and location" The original poster, "Man as Industrial Palace", the most famous illustration from Kahn's modernist magnum opus, Das Leben des Menschen (1922-33). With the variant imprint "aus Kahn", instead of "Beilage zu Kahn" (no priority established) and the additional following line "Offsetdruckerei Fricke & Co. Stuttgart" below. Kahn, a German gynaecologist, was arguably one of the most successful popular science writers internationally during the mid-20th century. His "recipe for success was the combination of a lucid writing style with intriguing visuals" (Borck, p. 462), and his copiously illustrated textbook Das Leben des Menschen was his greatest achievement, integrating nature and the human body inextricably with new technologies, the rapid industrialisation and technocratization of Weimar Germany, and the Bauhaus and Dada movements. "In addition to the over 1,500 images in the five volumes, the set also included an oversize poster, summarising the book by showing Man as Industrial Palace - thus encapsulating Kahn's explanatory strategy. The poster showed the human body as an assembly line in an industrialised workspace, packed with technology and populated, according to the division of labour, by anonymous workers and white-collar members of the modern society. The image did not simply compare the body to an industrial plant metaphorically - it directly represented every organ and bodily system with a technical analogue topographically proportionate in size and location" (Borck, pp. 462-3). READ MORE Original chromolithograph poster (960 x 480 mm). .