Titze (Walter Karl)

ideal for fabric or wallpaper, from the designer’s published work, ‘Birds in Design’, here supplied with a text leaf bearing his 1366 Mission Street, San Francisco, address, and his mission statement, “It is the purpose of this folio to illustrate how simple line and space may be developed into pleasing pattern. The following original ideas, repeated and reversed, have been developed into all-over designs in the mode of today. The simplicity of these ideas should be an inspiration to the designer”. The complete spiral bound work of 20 plates, from which these 12 are extracted, was described in an advertisement in the art journal, ‘Design’, volume 41, issue 6, in 1940, as ‘printed by hand in the silk screen method, selling to art teachers and libraries throughout the West’. Walter Karl Titze (1889-1944) was born in Brainard, Minnesota, in 1889, undertook military service during WW1, then moved to San Francisco in 1936, where he worked promoting design and production techniques, including advocating the economic and aesthetic benefits of silk screen printing, beautifully demonstrated in these bird-based patterns. He passed away in Los Angeles, in 1944.

12 silk screen prints on thick wove paper, each c.455 x 320 mm. (18 x 12 5/8 in), with an additional text leaf, occasional slight spotting and faint damp-staining, some minor handling creases,