Franz Kraus was an Israeli graphic designer

Graphic designer

A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...

.

Biography

1910–23, Kraus grew up in Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

, Austria, and claimed that his favorite place was the art studio of brother Emil Kraus. (Emil went on to study at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

  and at Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...

's own art school in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and became a prominent member of the Sezession Graz. Emil's twin brother immigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1939. Their other brother, Otto, died in one of the Nazi concentration camps

Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

 in the 1940s, and Emil under unknown circumstances in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.) Franz's first employment, arranged by his father, was as a window decorator of the bookstore of the Löwit-Verlag, a major publisher in Vienna. He had settled in Vienna in 1923 at age 18, where he resided for three years. As a Jew, his interest in Zionist issues began to develop and was encouraged by his reading the speeches of Chaim Weizman and Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky.

Kraus lived in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 1926–33, where he eventually assumed the position of the sole graphic designer of the Friedrich Ernst Hübsch-Verlag (publisher). The job fulfilled his early desire to become an artist; he had envied brother Emil's talent. As a night student, he studied in the Reimann Schule in Berlin, the city where he met his wife-to-be Anni. Due to the frightening public antisemitic incidences there, he and Anni decided to immigrate to Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

. They spent a year, 1933–34, in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 (arriving there from Paris) where Franz designed Hollywood-film posters. Anni was a photographer for a German journalist whose wife was Jewish, a circumstance which possibly supported the association. Because there was no rabbi or an active synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

 in Barcelona, they could not be married as Austrian citizens and were rather wed in a civil ceremony at the German embassy. Fortunately, through a generous uncle of Anni, they were able to buy visas to Palestine, sailing from Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 to the port of Jaffa

Jaffa

Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

, arriving October 1934.

The Krauses settled in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. Through receptive manufacturers, Franz was able to acquire clients for advertising; he designed posters for companies such as Dubek cigarettes, for which he worked for 45 years. Another on-going client was Elite, a candy manufacturer (today owned by Straus). Prior to Kraus, who dealt with every aspect of graphic design, business people in pre-1948 Palestine and early Israel knew little about advertising methods. Even though Kraus employed photography later in his career, his most dynamic and colorful work was realized through his hand-painted artwork, frequently in gouache

Gouache

Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...

, sometimes calling on photographic studies shot by his wife. His best-known image, though not his aesthetic best, is the "Visit Palestine" poster of 1936. He was prolific but made very little money from frugal clients and, according to Kraus himself, was unable to work gratis. He was one of Israel's most-accomplished graphic designers.

Exhibitions

• One-person venue, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1981
• "Franz Krausz—Pionier der Werbegrafik in Israel," Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum, Austria, 24 February–28 March 2005
• "Franz Krausz—Blumen und Muschein Israels," Jüdischen Kulturzentrums, Graz, Austria, 1–28 March 2005
• "Die Neuen Hebräer—100 Jahre Kunst in Israel", Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany, 20 May–5 September 2005