I had known Andy Kner for 25 years, beginning in the early 1990s, in his capacity as Art Director of Print magazine. Andy often talked with pride about his family’s heritage in the printing and design industry, and I recall a caricature portrait of his father, Albert, in his office. Thanks to Robert Elton Brooker III and co-author Adám Erdész, Andy’s rich family history is preserved in a handsome new tome, Albert Kner: Artist, Icon, Legend: Discovering His Legacy in Industrial Design. Turns out Andy was quite humble about his family’s legacy. The Kner family were well known in Hungary as booksellers and bookbinders, going back for generations. Kner Press was the leading printer in Gyoma, Hungary, in the late 19th century.
Born in 1899, Albert was the sixth child of Izidor Kner, the head of the press. Showing artistic talent at a young age, he studied graphics at the Royal Hungarian School of Applied Arts at 15. Albert was on track to become the first member of his family to study at a university when the First World War intervened. Albert served on the Italian front and suffered a debilitating injury resulting in a paralyzed eye, which he was forced to tape shut to sleep. After the war, he continued his studies in typography and won a prize for an endpaper design. Albert received myriad commissions and became the art director of a small Viennese firm. His designs for board games went into production in Austria, and at the same time he continued his studies.
It’s hard to imagine contemporary life without Albert Kner’s influence.
In 1925, Albert was hired as the artistic director of the Romanian Helikon printing house and worked as a designer for the family business. He was a man of many skills, including graphic design, typography, illustration, woodcut, and industrial design. Albert returned to Hungary in 1927 and worked as the art director for the Hungaria Newspress, a prominent printing house in Budapest, where he oversaw the design of several daily newspapers, magazines, and books, many of whose covers he designed. He remained there for 13 years.
With the situation in Eastern Europe worsening for Jews in the late 1930s, Albert, 40, relocated to the United States with his family and was soon employed by the Container Corporation of America. At CCA, he designed the many breakthrough inventions that would become a part of everyday life: the six-pack for beverage bottles, cereal and detergent boxes, the flip-top cigarette box, containers for ice cream, and the toothpaste tube. It is hard to imagine contemporary life without Kner’s influence. Tragically, most of the Kner family in Europe perished at the hand of the Nazis.
KNER is stunning. Designed by Sarolta Ágnes Erdélyi, the book documents all of this history. Brooker and Erdész tell the Kner story in remarkable detail, including the tragic aspects of Albert’s life. Albert’s myriad works of art come to life beautifully, beginning with his childhood cartoons and throughout his career. The breath of work is inspiring: posters, books, paintings, advertising, photomontage, packaging, furniture, toys, textiles, and games. Personal correspondences and family photographs mingle with his work, bringing Albert and the Kner family to life in this comprehensively researched biography. It’s hard to believe that Albert Kner has not been included prior in the annals of design history. Thanks to Brooker and Erdesz, this is no longer the case.
Images courtesy Sarolta Ágnes Erdélyi.