George Him
| George Him | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jerzy Himmelfarb 4 August 1900 Lodz |
| Died | 4 April 1982 (aged 81) United Kingdom |
| Education | Leipzig Academy of Graphic Art |
George Him, (4 August 1900 – 4 April 1982), was a Polish born British designer responsible for a number of notable posters, book illustrations and advertising campaigns for a wide range of clients.
Him was born Jerzy Himmelfarb in 1900 to a Polish-Jewish family in Lodz, which was then in the Russian Empire and is now in Poland. After schooling and further education in Warsaw Him studied Roman Law in Moscow but left in 1917 when the Russian Revolution forced the closure of the university he was attending. He moved to Bonn and by 1924 had completed a PhD on the comparative history of religions before deciding to study graphic art in Leipzig. Him studied at the Leipzig Academy of Graphic Art but even before he graduated in 1928 was already undertaking commercial commissions. Him returned to Poland where, in 1933, he changed his name and also established a design partnership with Jan Le Witt. Working as Lewitt-Him, the two established a distinctive design style which combined cubist and surrealist elements, often in a humorous context. Their most notable work in Poland were illustrations for an experimental poetry group known as Skamander.
Him and Le Witt worked together in Poland for several years before, in 1937, they relocated the Lewitt-Him design business to London, following an exhibition of their work there by the publishers Lund Humphries. The pair quickly gained commercial contracts with London Transport and Imperial Airways as well as illustrating children's books, such as The Little Red Engine Gets a Name (1942) by Diana Ross. In London during World War II the partnership received notable commissions for information and public safety posters from, among others, the General Post Office, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Ministry of Information.
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