Berthold Wolpe: The Total Man [Collection]

Phil Cleaver’s research on Berthold Wolpe (1905-1989) contributes uniquely to a growing body of work that examines the legacy of the German-Jewish designer, typographer and illustrator. Major retrospective exhibitions of Wolpe’s life and work had been organised as early as 1980 at the Victoria and Albert Museum; more recent ones took place at the Gutenberg Museum (2006); and the Type Archive (2017), the latter celebrating the revival of five of the designer’s typefaces by Monotype. The aim of the exhibition ‘Berthold Wolpe: The Total Man’ curated by Cleaver at the Lettering Arts Centre (2018), was to explore Wolpe’s idiosyncratic character as reflected in his personal possessions (tools, personal notes, items of clothing, family photographs), unpublished hand-drawn artwork, and personal recollections provided by family members, friends and collaborators. These have been identified, selected and curated for public presentation as a result of Cleaver’s extensive research conducted in and around Wolpe’s family collection. An important focus of the exhibition was Wolpe’s front-cover book designs created for Faber&Faber. Ninety-two finished designs covered the back wall of the show. But while these have been reproduced widely, Cleaver’s exhibition also presented a broad selection of prototypes of lettering, often drawn on scraps of paper, which show Wolpe’s skills and the process of creating strong and energetic letter forms. Many of these were publicly exhibited for the first time. The exhibition was accompanied by ‘Berthold Wolpe: The Total Man,’ a publication that reproduces many of these documents, including a series of photographs that offer a perspective of Wolpe’s personal life, his flight from Nazi persecution, and relocation to Britain. In the book, recollections from friends and collaborators complete the image of ‘a total man.’ The exhibition and publication received extensive reviews in The Times, the Creative Review, and Design Week among others.

A multi-component output which includes:
(1) Phil Cleaver's curatorial contribution for the Berthold Wolpe: The Total Man exhibition
(2) Phil Cleaver's 'Berthold Wolpe: The Total Man' - publication that accompanied the exhibition