Walter Dexel was a German scholar, artist, curator, and designer. In his capacity as art director at the Art Union in Jena, Germany, he came into contact with a large number of artists, such as Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Karl Peter Röhl, El Lissitzky, Theo van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters, Walter Gropius, and Paul Klee, among others, and was generally closely associated with the Bauhaus.¹ In the late 1920s, Dexel created stage sets for plays written by Bertolt Brecht and André Gide.²

In addition to his work as an artist, Dexel was also an accomplished typographer, teaching graphic design in Magdeburg, Germany, from 1936 to 1942, and at the Berlin-Schöneberg National School of Art. Dexel was also a member of the ring neue Werbegestalter (Circle of New Advertising Designers), a group of nine artists who were also active as advertising designers, founded by Kurt Schwitters.

Donald Judd included a copy of Walter Dexel: Neue Reklame (Düsseldorf: Edition Marzona, 1987) in his library in Marfa, Texas. It is the only publication dedicated to Dexel’s work as a graphic designer.

¹ Walter Dexel and Walter Vitt, Fine Days at Dexel’s: The Visitors’ Book; Walter Dexel’s Centenary (Cologne: Galerie Stolz, 1990).

² Ibid.