KAHN, FRITZ. 1888-1968.


Das Leben des Menschen. Stuttgart: Frankh'sche Verlagshandlung, 1923-1931. 5 volumes. Small 4to. Numerous illustrations in text, large color lithographic poster in rear pocket of volume 5, 3-D "glasses" in rear pocket of volume 5, various publisher's blow-ins loosely inserted. Quarter blue cloth and boards, volumes 2 and 4 with pictorial dust jackets, each volume with original card carton with paper spine label. A few chips to jacket of volume 4, some spotting and yellowing.INCLUDES KAHN'S ICONIC COLOR POSTER DER MENSCH ALS INDUSTRIEPALAST.Filled with images that reflected the varying stylistic influences of the Weimar era, Kahn's book was published in these 5 volumes over a period of years. Work on the illustrations began as early as 1912, and poster depicting the body as a "human factory" was reprinted and widely distributed throughout Germany, even after the books were banned by the Nazi regime and Kahn forced to flee the country. The first state of the poster, as it appears here, was originally published as a supplement to volume 3 in 1926, and provided with a convenient pocket to insert it into at the back of volume 5. It was reprinted in 1931 in a second state (with the man at upper left standing in the center of the control panel, rather than to the left of it). See Uta and Thilo von Debschitz, Fritz Kahn: Man Machine, New York, 2009, and Michael Sappol, Body Modern: Fritz Kahn, Scientific Illustration, and the Homuncular Subject, Minneapolis, 2017.