Framing Fraktur

Fraktur is a manuscript-based folk art tradition brought from Europe by German-speaking immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania beginning in 1683. Used for birth and baptismal certificates, writing samples, music books, religious texts, and many other forms, fraktur documents are exuberantly decorated with tulips, hearts, angels, unicorns, eagles, and other motifs. As works of art, fraktur are comparable to fine illuminated manuscripts, and yet they are essentially domestic and personal documents. Framing Fraktur takes a unique approach to the study of traditional fraktur by connecting it to the work of contemporary artists who similarly combine images with texts. Two essays (by Minardi and Pollock) provide historical background, analysis, and recent interpretation of selected masterworks from the Free Library of Philadelphia's exemplary collection of over 1,300 pieces of hand-drawn and printed fraktur as well as important manuscripts, books, broadsides, and mixed media objects. The other authors (Singer and Tannenbaum) focus on the relevance of fraktur to particular twentieth-century art movements up to the present. Dada, American modernism, Pop art, Chicago Imagism, text-based conceptual art, graffiti and street art all resonate with fraktur. Works by seven visual artists, who were featured in the Free Library's exhibition Word & Image: Contemporary Artists Connect to Fraktur-Marian Bantjes (Canada), Anthony Campuzano (United States), Imran Qureshi (Pakistan), Elaine Reichek (United States), Bob and Roberta Smith (England), and Gert and Uwe Tobias (Romania/Germany)-are also discussed here, underscoring how their current adaptation of folk art genres such as samplers, block prints, and sign painting are linked to fraktur but convey subject matter that is distinct to their own culture. Contributors: Lisa Minardi, Janine Pollock, Matthew Singer, Judith Tannenbaum Distributed for the Free Library of Philadelphia