Dorrit Dekk
Dorrit Dekk (18 May 1917 – 29 December 2014) was a Czech-born British graphic designer, printmaker and painter.
Early life
She was born Dorothy Karoline Fuhrmann in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on 18 May 1917.[1]
She trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Vienna from 1936-1938, where she was taught by the stage designer Otto Niedermoser and contributed to designs for the theatre and film director Max Reinhardt.[2] Following the Anschluss in 1938, Dekk escaped to London, where she took up a place at the Reimann School through a scholarship arranged by Niedermoser and specialised in graphic design.
Career
Following the closure of the Reimann School in 1939, Dekk joined the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and became a 'listener', taking down coded messages by hand which were then sent to Bletchley Park for deciphering.[3] At the end of the war, she joined the design studio of what was to become the Central Office of Information, working under Reginald Mount. During her two and a half years, she designed numerous government posters, including the iconic Ministry of Health's poster 'Trap the Germs in Your Handkerchief'.[4]
Leaving in 1948 to become a freelance designer, Dekk's clients included Air France, the Orient Shipping Line (latterly P&O Orient Line), the Post Office Savings Bank, Trust House Forte, Penguin, The Tatler and London Transport. She also worked as a designer for the Travelling Section of the Festival of Britain, creating the mural 'British Sports and Games'.[5] In 1956, she became a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists.[6]
She retired from her graphic design practice in 1982, but continued to work as a painter and printmaker right up until her death in December 2014.[1]
Personal life
In 1940, she married Leonard Klatzow, a South African physicist. He had a key role in the invention of the cathode-ray tube and infrared night vision for the navy. He died in 1942, following a plane crash.[1] In 1968, she married Kurt Epstein and they remained together until his death in 1990.[1]
References
Further reading
- Ruth Artmonsky, Designing Women: Women Working in Advertising and Publicity from the 1920s to the 1960s, Artmonsky Arts, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9551994-9-3.
- 'Dorrit Dekk' on the London Transport Museum's website. Date accessed: 4 February 2014.
- Interview with Dorrit Dekk on YouTube about the Land Traveller exhibition of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Date accessed: 4 February 2014.