F.H. Ehmcke & Clara Ehmcke, Dusseldorf

The marketplace of the medieval town echoes with shouts. Here, rag-and-bone men offer their cheap junk, there, a peddler hawks fake chains, in the next stall, the greasy scent of lard-baked cakes lures the peasants and children, who push their way through the throng with open mouths, all jostling and making noise, but all surpassed by the shouts and gestures of the quacks, who try to foist their mixtures and miracle potions on the gullible rabble. What any of this has to do with anything that might concern this survey of the work of Fritz and Clara Ehmcke, we cannot say, but that’s how this intro to this book begins. What we can say, however, is that this is a beautiful showcase of their innovative work when they were still young. We’re not including many pics here because we think it is a book better seen in full. So here’s a movie of a flip-through. We’ve been delighted to see in this book remarkable ephemeral items we’ve offered for sale and other things examples of their common work done uncommonly well. This one is a good record of work that’s not so well known in the U.S. And apparently there’s not a single copy in an American library.