Dorrit Dekk obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/07/dorrit-dekk

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As a female graphic designer in the 20th century, Dorrit Dekk, who has died aged 97, was a rarity. She began her career in the postwar years at the government’s Central Office of Information, where her public information posters conveyed such messages as “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases” or “Bones are still needed to make glue …” Then, in 1949, she set up on her own as a freelancer, and became known as the “travel queen”, designing many posters for Air France and beginning a long professional relationship with the P&O shipping line.

Being an attractive woman usually working for male clients “confused the issue”, she said, so she learned not to accept invitations to discuss commissions over dinner. However, there were also advantages. The director of Air France would sometimes comment that she looked pale and could do with a holiday, then send her off to the south of France, gratis.

Still young and with little design experience, at a party in 1948 Dorrit met Richard Levin, the exhibition designer responsible for the Land Travelling Exhibition, a touring section planned for the 1951 Festival of Britain, with the theme of “the British people and the things they make and use”. When he asked her if she had ever designed murals, she fibbed: “Of course I have.” The large mural and stand she went on to design for People at Play, for the British sports and games section of the exhibition, was displayed in cities across the Midlands and the north of England. She was always proud and grateful to be part of the 1951 festival: it was a wonderful entry into the British design world.

Dorrit continued to run her own successful design practice, and in 1956 became a fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists. A great admirer of the artists John Heartfield and Kurt Schwitters, like them she often used collage, utilising it in her design and advertising work for clients that included London Transport, British Rail and the Post Office Savings Bank. She also continued to design posters, menu cards and window displays for P&O. Penguin Books and Tatler magazine commissioned covers and she illustrated several books. Her work was, like Dorrit herself, full of humour, charm and elegance.

She was born Dorothy Karoline Fuhrmann in Brno, Czechoslovakia, but was known as Dorrit (her mother admired Charles Dickens). When she was four, Dorrit, with her mother, Valerie, and brother, left for Austria. Her father, Hans, a textile manufacturer, remained, and later died in Auschwitz.

Dorrit decided to become a theatre designer and in 1936 began attending the Kunstgewerbeschule (art school) in Vienna. In March 1938, Hitler occupied Austria. Dorrit had designed a set for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and when she went to the small rococo theatre in the Schönbrunn Palace for the opening night, she found a note at the entrance: “Jews not allowed”. It was time to leave and luckily she could, because she still had her Czech passport and did not need permission from the Nazis to do so.

Her professor, Otto Niedermoser, arranged a scholarship for her to attend the Reimann school of art, which had relocated from Berlin to London in 1937. The poster designer Austin Cooper was its principal until 1940, when the school closed due to the onset of war. Dorrit was advised she would not make a good living as a theatre designer, so reluctantly changed studies to display and commercial design. She remained lifelong friends with fellow teachers and students including Annely Juda, Leonard Rosoman, Eileen Evans, James Holland, Milner Gray and the brother and sister Natasha and Alex Kroll, all of whom became prominent artists and designers.

In 1940 Dorrit married Leonard Klatzow, a South African physicist, who was instrumental in the invention of the cathode-ray tube and infrared night vision for the navy. Two years later, Leonard died after a plane crash. Dorrit found a job in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, and became a radio intelligence officer in the top secret “Y” service, intercepting the German military’s encrypted messages to their E-boats patrolling the Channel.

From 1947 until 1949, after an introduction from Holland, she worked with Reginald Mount and Evans in the design studio of the Central Office of Information. A printer came to collect her artwork one day and noted that she had not signed her work. Dorrit realised that both her maiden and married names would be difficult to recognise in Britain, so Mount suggested she use her initials: DKK, but with the addition of an “e”. Thus her professional name became “Dekk”.

In 1968 she married Kurt Epstein and they travelled widely. Dorrit was always sketching and became more interested in painting, printmaking and assembling collages. She was fascinated by architecture and ruins and produced work in a variety of media for many solo and joint exhibitions. Kurt died in 1990.

Even after a stroke in 2001 that meant she had to use a wheelchair and could not move her right hand, Dorrit continued to create a piece of abstract or figurative art every day with the help of her beloved and devoted carer, Mary Mendis. She pleaded to everyone to give her any kind of “rubbish” so she could mess around making joyous collages. She was her own severest critic and often cut up her work to recycle it for another piece.

Wearing trademark colourful stripy socks, she was thrilled to receive young visitors and they found her a stimulating and inspirational role model. Though latterly virtually housebound, she remained curious, devouring news of the latest architecture and exhibitions from the world outside. Her youthful passion, indomitable spirit and sharp wit stayed with her until the end. She was indeed a rarity.

• Dorrit Dekk (Dorothy Karoline Epstein), graphic designer, printmaker and painter, born 18 May 1917; died 29 December 2014