a blog by Peter Leonard
Jon Viklund, a doctoral student at Uppsala, gave a presentation today about typography and visual design in Swedish Modernist poetry between 1905-1920. The poetry book as artwork paralleled the development of the prose contained therein, with the resulting volumes achieving a status as collectors' objects. These included such works as August Strindberg's 1905 poetry collection Ordalek och småkonst, which was designed and illustrated by Arthur Sjögren. Sjögren, whose work is seen in the photos above from other collections, was a master of Art Nouveau illustration and typographic design. His name stands on the facing title page of Strindberg's Ordalek och småkonst, perhaps the first time that a graphic designer achieved such recognition within the Swedish literary tradition.