Leonard Fries was born into a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany in 1883, and gained early success in Berlin as a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. Fearing increasing anti-Semitic legislation after Hitler's rise to the chancellorship in 1933, he immigrated to England in the mid-1930s, where he designed print advertisements for a number of household names and European brands, including Esso, Shell BP and Kodak, and Guinness, Watneys Beer and Whitbread Stout. During the Second World War he worked for the British Ministry of Information and, post-war, produced designs for British political parties.
Graphic designer Leonard (Leonhard) Fries was born into a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany in 1883, later moving to Berlin. As a young man he was active as a painter, graphic designer and illustrator, contributing to the celebrated poster magazine Das Plakat and creating advertisements for, among others, R. Barnik Artistic Lithography. Fries was also a member of the Bund Deutscher Gebrauchsgraphiker (BDG), the Professional Association of German Communication Designers, founded in 1919 as the first German association for the profession. During the mid-1930s, fearing the ascent of National Socialism and increasing anti-Semitism in Germany, Fries took up brief residence in Switzerland before immigrating to Britain and settling in west Hampstead, north London, with his wife Gisela.
After his move to Britain, Fries continued working as a book illustrator and commercial designer, producing poster designs for a number of European brands and British household names, including Guinness, Watneys Beer, Whitbread Stout, Esso, Shell BP, Kodak, Blédine and Greys cigarettes. During the 1940s he worked for the Ministry of Information, which may have prevented him from being interned as a so-called 'enemy alien', since the National Archives' records state that he was an 'internee at liberty'. Post-war Fries created a number of designs for British political parties. He became a naturalised British citizen in April 1948. Fries exhibited with Ben Uri in its annual open exhibitions of contemporary artists on three occasions, in 1945, 1950 and 1951. In the first of these, the Jewish Chronicle in its 'Art Notes', described Fries' work Summer Rest: 'a quiet curve in a river bank, although it is in a poster technique, is beautifully effective' (Jewish Chronicle, 28 September 1945, p. 17). Posthumously his design work was featured in an exhibition held by John Denham in his eponymous London gallery in October 1988 (see AJR Information, September 1988; John Denham's archive is now held by Tate Archives). Fries died in London in 1953. An extensive number of Fries' designs are held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wellcome Collection in London, as well as in the German Poster Museum (part of the Museum Folkwang, Essen).
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Leonard Fries]
Publications related to [Leonard Fries] in the Ben Uri Library