Theater - Zehn Radierungen 1964

Here's Imre Reiner's Theater - Zehn Radierungen, a cover design for a portfolio of etchings. You can imagine him working at his desk, carefully positioning each letter on the page. With its stark, architectural layout, the cover hints at the structured, almost theatrical world within. Looking at this, I think of other artists who were also typographers, especially the Bauhaus artists, who were obsessed with simplicity. The precision of the type is palpable, but look closer and there’s a quiet expressiveness. The letters have a strange feel of inevitability. I wonder what Reiner was thinking about as he placed each letter, each word. It’s almost like he’s building a stage for something more dramatic to unfold. Artists are always talking to each other, across time and place, picking up ideas, reinventing them, and making them their own.