Gudrun Zapf von Hesse

Zapf von Hesse was an apprentice and assistant at the bookbindery of Otto Dorfner in Weimar from 1934 to 1937. Her calligraphy practice began during this apprenticeship; in her acceptance address for the Frederic W. Goudy Award, she said “One afternoon a week we had to write very simple letters. I was not satisfied with this form of instruction; therefore, I taught myself at home, from a detailed examination of the works of Rudolf Koch and Edward Johnston.” After completing her apprenticeship in 1937, Zapf von Hesse stayed on as an assistant in Dorfner’s bindery until 1940. She received a Master’s Diploma in bookbinding in 1940. She completed further studies at the Berlin Graphic Arts School in 1941 with Johannes Boehland, German painter and graphic artist, 1903-1964. In 1941, Zapf von Hesse worked as a bookbinder in Berlin. From 19441945, she taught bookbinding and calligraphy as therapy for soldiers with head injuries at a hospital in Bad Ischl, Austria. After World War II, in 1946, she opened her own book bindery on the premises of the Bauer type foundry in Frankfurt. The director of the foundry, Georg Hartmann, gave her permission to operate her bindery on the premises. Zapf von Hesse’s career as a type designer began after Lepold and Zapf commissioned her to design typefaces for Stem-

pel. Her first typeface for Stempel was Diotima, issued in 1951. The New York City Opera used Diotima for advertisements in the New York Times, and it was also used for headings in the British Airways in-flight magazine. In 1948, Zapf von Hesse opened a bookbinding studio with one apprentice in the Stempel Type Foundry building. Her bindery at Stempel closed in 1955 when her son, Christian was born, but she continued designing typefaces “as time and family duties allowed.” In the 1970’s, Zapf von Hesse worked with her husband Hermann Zapf to prepare bitmaps by hand for his alphabet designs Marconi and Edison. As technologies changed in the second half of the 20th century, Zapf von Hesse continued to design typefaces for photocomposition and digital production. She was actively designing typefaces into the 90’s for Berthold, Bitstream, and URW Hamburg.