Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Hans Schleger designer

Hans Schleger was born to Jewish parents in Kempen, Germany (now Kempno, Poland) in 1898. After training at Berlin's Kunstgewerbeschule and working in the USA and Germany, he immigrated to England in 1932 due to rising anti-Semitism in his homeland. In London he designed wartime information posters, redesigned the iconic bar-and-circle bus stop logo, and created corporate identities for companies including Shell, Penguin, and John Lewis.

Born: 1898 Kempen, Germany

Died: 1976 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1932

Other name/s: Hans Schleger, Hans Leo Degenhard Schlesinger, Zéró, Zéró Schleger, Zero, Hans Schlesinger, Zéró Schlesinger


Biography

Graphic designer Hans Schleger (né Hans Leo Degenhard Schlesinger) was born into a Jewish family in Kempen, Germany (now Kempno, Poland) on 29 December 1898. The family moved to Berlin in 1904, where Schlesinger showed an early talent for drawing. In spring 1917 he was conscripted into the Imperial German Army and served in the Pioneer Corps. After the war, he shortened his surname to Schleger (hoping to sound less Jewish) and trained in drawing and painting at Berlin's Kunstgewerbeschule (1920–21) under Emil Orlík, producing his earliest poster designs, influenced by the modern design ethos of the Bauhaus. He was then employed as publicity and film set designer for filmmaker John Hagenbeck. In 1924 Schleger moved to New York, where he worked as a freelance designer on illustrated press advertisements and then as an art director; he was an early contributor to The New Yorker magazine. During this time, he also produced modernist-inspired drawings for fashion houses and high-end retailers and began working under the pseudonym, Zéró, establishing his own studio on Madison Avenue in 1926.

Following the stock market crash in 1929, Schleger returned to Berlin and began working for W.S. Crawford, a London-based advertising agency, before immigrating to England in 1932 as result of rising anti-Semitism in Germany. In 1934 he held a solo exhibition at publishers, Lund Humphries and a year later he was commissioned by London Transport to redesign the iconic bar-and-circle signs used for bus stops. While at Crawford’s, Schleger connected with the American poster designer Edward McKnight Kauffer and graphic artist Ashley Havinden, who were able to introduce him to the London design scene and help him find freelance work. Schleger and Kauffer remained close friends and became neighbours at Swan Court in Chelsea. Havinden took an interest in graphic design as a progressive tool for communication and, as a member of the Publicity Committee of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), he employed a number of émigré artists, including Schleger, whose work was otherwise overlooked by the Ministry of Information (MoI). Through Havinden, Schleger undertook several commissions for RoSPA, including posters for a Safety Week exhibition at Charing Cross Station in 1937, which promoted the publication of the Highway Code, a safety guide for road users featuring Schleger’s graphics. Having worked in New York, London, and Berlin, Schleger sought to find a visual language that could communicate universally, drawing inspiration from Surrealism, Modernism, and the Bauhaus. The surreal elements of Schleger’s Safety Week posters were considered novel in London and his designs were extremely popular: over 40,000 copies of the Highway Code were distributed after the exhibition.

Although naturalised in 1938, following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and the increase of anti-émigré sentiment in Britain, the commissions Schleger received from the MoI declined dramatically. Consequently, he left London, rented a cottage in Cobham, Surrey and began seeing a psychoanalyst, possibly having suffered a nervous breakdown. He resumed design work in 1941, working for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food, designing posters encouraging civilians to ration food and grow their own vegetables at home. In 1943 he produced Posters for the Blackout, a series urging pedestrians to take care during the Blackout, when street lights and car headlights were turned off to hinder German bombers in identifying their targets. After the war, he spent a year in 1950 as a visiting associate professor at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, USA (established as the New Bauhaus by László Moholy-Nagy). In 1953 he established his own studio, Hans Schleger and Associates. Schleger's commissions included designing a logo for the Design Centre in London's Haymarket (1955) and he continued to work on corporate identity projects throughout the 1950s, including with MacFisheries (1952) and Finmar (1953). In the 1960s, Schleger produced logos for Penguin Books, with different designs for history, children’s, and educational publications. He also designed new logos for the department store, John Lewis and for the Edinburgh International Festival. Throughout his career, he taught extensively, guest lecturing at Chelsea Polytechnic, Central St Martins, the Royal College of Art, and the Regional College of Art in Manchester. Schleger was elected a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers. In 1959, he was named a Royal Designer for Industry.

Hans Schleger died in London, England on 18 September 1976. His work has featured in many posthumous shows including Designs on Britain, held at the Jewish Museum London and Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933-45 curated by Ben Uri at the German Embassy London (2018). His archive at the V&A featured in the project, Jewish Emigre designers' archives, presented at the V&A design archives (both 2017). His work is represented in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the Imperial War Museum, London Transport Museum and the V&A.

Related books

  • Sarah MacDougall ed., 'Interstices - Discovering the Ben Uri Collection Guest curated by René Gimpel' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2020), pp. 8-9
  • 'Designed by Refugees', AJR Journal, Vol 19, No. 3, March 2019 , p. 11
  • 'From Toasters to Posters', AJR Journal, Vol 19, No. 2, February 2019, p. 1
  • 'Torn From Home' AJR Journal, Vol 19, No. 1, January 2019, p. 2
  • 'Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933-45' (London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in association with the German Embassy London, 2018), p. 44
  • Burcu Dogramaci, ‘Scheitern und Bestehen in der Fremde: Deutschsprachige Künstler im britischen Exil nach 1933,’ in Uwe Fleckner, Maike Steinkamp and Hendrik Ziegler eds., Der Künstler in der Fremde: Migration – Reise – Exil (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), pp. 271-277
  • Jonathan Black, 'For the People's Good: Hans Schleger (1898–1976), Poster Design and British National Identity, 1935–60', Visual Culture in Britain, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2012, pp. 169-190
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel DIckson eds., Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
  • Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006)
  • Paul Rennie, An Investigation into the Design, Production and Display Contexts of Industrial Safety Posters Produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents During WW2 and a Catalogue of Posters, PhD Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2005
  • Pat Schleger, Zero: Hans Schleger – A Life of Design, (London: Lund Humphries, 2001)
  • 'The Wanting Game', The Guardian, 17 March 2001, p. 16
  • Stefan Buzas, Master of Simplicity, RSA Journal, Vol. 139, No. 5415, 1991, pp. 203-204
  • Robin Kinross, Emigré Graphic Designers in Britain: Around the Second World War and Afterwards, Journal of Design History, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1990, pp. 35-57.

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Alliance Graphique Internationale (member)
  • Berlin Kunstgewerbeschule (student) (student)
  • Chelsea Polytechnic (guest lecturer) (guest lecturer)
  • Central St Martins (guest lecturer) (guest lecturer)
  • Finmar (designer) (designer)
  • Hans Schleger and Associates (foudner) (foudner)
  • IIT Institute, Chicago (visiting professor) (visiting professor)
  • John Lewis (designer) (designer)
  • Kunstgewerbeschule Berlin (student, 1920–21) (student, 1920–21)
  • London Transport (designer) (designer)
  • MacFisheries (designer) (designer)
  • Ministry of Agriculture (designer) (designer)
  • Ministry of Food (designer) (designer)
  • Ministry of Information (designer) (designer)
  • Penguin Books (designer) (designer)
  • Royal College of Art (guest lecturer) (guest lecturer)
  • Regional College of Art, Manchester (guest lecturer) (guest lecturer)
  • Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA, designer) (RoSPA, designer)
  • Shell (designer) (designer)
  • The New Yorker (contributor) (contributor)
  • W.S. Crawford (employee) (employee)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Interstices: Discovering the Ben Uri Collection, curated by René Gimpel, Ben Uri Gallery (2020)
  • Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933-45, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London (2018)
  • Refugees: German Contribution to 20th Century British Art, Ben Uri Art Gallery and Museum (2017)
  • Designs on Britain, Jewish Museum London (2017)
  • Jewish Emigre designers' archives, V&A design archives, Blythe Road (2017)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933-45, Ben Uri Gallery and touring (2009-10)
  • Influential Europeans in British Craft and Design, Crafts Council (1992)
  • Eye for Industry, Victoria and Albert Museum (1987)
  • Britain Can Make It, Victoria and Albert Museum (1946)
  • The Highway Code, London Ministry of Transport, Charing Cross Underground Station (1937)
  • Hans Schleger, Lund Humphries (1934)
  Hans Schleger
   
Ben Uri collection

Hans Schleger in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Hans Schleger]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Hans Schleger] in the Ben Uri Library