Divinely Elegant: The World of Ernst Dryden

by Anthony Lipmann

Traces Dryden's life and career and shows his designs for costumes, clothing, advertisements, and magazine covers

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Anthony Lipmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1976 upon the death of my great aunt, my father asked me to assist him to clear her house. It was that very hot summer in England when we wondered if it would ever rain again. I was 19. Visiting the house that morning, I noticed a large green 1930s travelling trunk that had been removed from the attic, placed on the doorstep waiting to be removed and taken away by the local refuse collectors. It had been in the open air all night. With the trunk half open and sheaves of paper tipping out I looked inside. There I found an array of startling elegant designs from the 1920s and 30s. Front Covers in gouache for the magazine Die Dame (the German equivalent of Vogue), original advertisement designs for Bugatti, Cinzano, Kusmi Tea, BP, Voisin automobiles, dress and menswear design and finally film costume design with swatches of silk and taffeta attached. On one design there was a pencil note which read, 'I look like the devil in pink!' (presumably a no no from the star it was designed for). Just back from University, I realised this was not something to be thrown away and later took the trunk back with me and put it under my bed. This was the start of a long journey. Who was this man, the designer of this extraordinary collection of applied art? And why had they arrived in Walton-on-Thames and been placed in my aunt's attic? The artist, it turned out was Ernst Dryden (1887-1938), and he had died suddenly in Hollywood on March 16th 1938, five days after the Anschluss. The work in his studio was sent back not to Austria, his home town, but to England to his life-long friend and one time lover, 'Hello' (short for Helene) who had fled here when her Nazi tailor had taken over her couture shop on The Graben. In this book I tell the story of Dryden's life and its interleaving with my own family's story, through words and pictures. In my research I was able to find original stone lithographic posters dating from the teens of the last century which had been signed under his original name 'Ernst Deutsch' and link all his later work from from 1919 onwards signed 'Dryden' - the name he adopted. Without the discovery of the pictures in the attic it would never have been possible to link the early Deutsch to the later Dryden. My book tells the story of one of the most talented commercial artists of his generation, and benefited hugely from having so many original works to use as illustration. My publishers, Pavilion Books, were incredibly supportive and when I visited Hollywood to interview Billy Wilder (who was Dryden's friend) they asked me to see if Wilder would write the foreword which he happily did. The book is still available via ABE Books and other secondhand book shops. It records a bygone era when photographs had not entirely usurped the territory of the applied artist. It also tells the story of one man's journey, and how his career changed and moved as he conquered every media he touched - posters, magazine design, dress and menswear, corporate design and finally Hollywood film costume. In passing we also see the rise of Nazism and the way in which Dryden attempted to keep one step ahead but could not save the family he loved.