ALFRED RUNGE (1881-1946) & EDUARD SCOTLAND (1885-1945). ERSTER PREIS / KAFFEE HAG. 1915. 36x23½

ALFRED RUNGE (1881-1946) & EDUARD SCOTLAND (1885-1945)

ERSTER PREIS / KAFFEE HAG. 1915.

36x23½ inches, 91½x59¾ cm. Kempedruck, Bremen.
Condition B+: water stains at bottom left edge; slight bleaching along top edge; foxing in image; creases and minor restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; minor creases in image. Paper.

Runge was a German architect active in Bremen who collaborated with Eduard Scotland on a small number of ads and posters for Kaffee HAG. The "Runge & Scotland" firm also designed several buildings along Bremen's Böttcherstrasse for the coffee company's founder, Ludwig Roselius, among other commercial and residential projects, and ocean liner interiors. At first glance, with its use of light and shadow without any outlining, this poster appears to be the work of Ludwig Hohlwein (who also designed a poster for the company in 1913, featuring a tennis player drinking coffee). What decaffeinated coffee has to do with playing tennis is as obscure as the actual position this player finds himself in, and yet the image itself is one of the finer, early tennis posters. Serious tennis connoisseurs will appreciate the "convex heart racket: a model which will disappear after the 1920s" (Tennis p. 40). Tennis p. 40, Le Tennis A l'Affiche np.