Gudrun's Work
On Sunday afternoon, in the library's downstairs auditorium, first Gudrun and then Hermann made presentations of their life's work. Some of the work (though by no means all) can be seen in the exhibit upstairs, or in the library's excellent collection of Zapfiana.

Gudrun Zapf von Hesse is less well known than her prolific husband Hermann, but she was already a calligrapher and book binder when they met at an exhibit in the late 1930s. (As Hermann later put it, he "married the competition.") Her first typeface, Diotima, was commissioned by D. Stempel AG, the type foundry that employed Hermann.

Gudrun Zapf von Hesse created her first typeface, Diotima, in 1952.

Gudrun's slide presentation showed exquisite examples of her book bindings, often in leather with gold-foil stamping, many times using types she had developed specifically for the purpose. She also showed many samples of her gorgeous calligraphy. Smoke proofs of Diotima (a quick way of proofing the work of cutting metal type punches) gave way to such unusual images as two magazine ads for Opel automobiles from the 1980s, using the fine-boned Diotima as the typeface for the headlines.

Among her other notable typefaces, the Nofret family (1986) was originally going to be called Diotima Book. The resemblance in the lighter weights in obvious; the italics are especially similar, but Nofret's roman is narrower than Diotima's extremely spacious characters -- more of a text face. Gudrun expanded Nofret in the direction of very heavy weights, too, which take on a massive sparkle found in very few bold typefaces.

Nofret resembles Diotima, especially in the lighter weights.

Her examples of type and calligraphy in use were sometimes breathtaking. Even as a slide projected onto a slightly over-lit screen, her setting of the preamble of the United Nations charter, blind stamped into dampened paper, was beautiful. The watercolors she showed from more recent years melded the forms of letters with the interplay of blocks of color. A page from a booklet from 1955 that I'd like to study in more detail, showing interleaved lines of black, swash-filled civilité lettering and roman, showed her mastery of contrast.

Gudrun doesn't speak English as fluently as Hermann, and she perhaps didn't give us as much detailed commentary as she might have if she'd been speaking her native language, but the audience was delighted to see the work and hear from its source. Both Gudrun and Hermann are quiet, soft-spoken, and reserved, without flamboyance or pretension. Their work speaks for them. If Hermann has come to cast a very long shadow, through his prominence in the world of type, Gudrun shows no signs of letting her own shadow be lost in his; and this exhibition and her talk may remind us what a talented artist and craftswoman she is and what a body of work she has created. I wouldn't be surprised to see this event inspire a number of graphic designers to put Gudrun's typefaces to use more often in the coming years.

The Other Half
Next week I'll turn to Hermann Zapf's part of the opening presentation, which focused on the upcoming CD-ROM retrospective of his work.

Zapfest continues this weekend with a talk by master printer Jack Stauffacher along with Sumner Stone on Saturday (my column "Type Tradition in a Digital Age" has more background on Sumner); and on Sunday with an event at Mills College honoring women in printing and type design, at which Gudrun Zapf will be an honored guest.

Read more by John D. Berry.