He said, "Let's go Dutch." She said, "I don't like your type."

The image above is figure 10-32  of Meggs' History of Graphic Design, fifth edition. It is the first page of A. Roland Holst's, Deirdre en de Zonen van Usnach (Deidre and the Sons of Usnach), which was printed by, the Dutch typographer, Jan van Krimpen in 1920 at the Van Scherpenzeel in The Hague (Fridrichs). What interested me about the image was the beautiful woodcut image on the left page. It has elegant curvilinear lines that have a very organic feel balanced with almost solid black areas with very hard edges. The image contrasts very well against the large red capitals with a sweeping line coming off the O in the second line of the title text. It is what made me mark the image on my first flip through the book.

Open Roman Capitals

I really enjoyed the image as it seemed like a great transitional piece that marked the crossing over from The Arts and Crafts Movement to Art Nouveau, and I wanted to research the artist. Unfortunately, my results only returned the name B. Esser in which there was little to no information to be had within my immediate reach. However, I have found  quite a bit on Jan van Krimpen and will give some tidbits on his work.

Jan van Krimpen (1877-1958) was a type designer and typographer from Gouda, Netherlands who developed type for the Enschedé Foundry (Meggs). His list of fonts include Lutetia, Romanée, Open Roman Capitals, Romulus type family, VAn Dijck Roman, Haarlemmer, Sheldon, and Spectrum which are all cut type or designed for mono-type (Wikipedia). He was "originally been trained as a visual artist, but later on trained himself in calligraphy and the art of bookbinding, to publish his first book in 1917, the Sonnetten by his friend Albert Besnard (KB). His published books ave excellent examples of his types and capitols and his typography had a minimalist approach as he believed that typography had a beauty in itself.

Reproduced Spectrum

 Therefore, there are little to no use of images or flourishes in the books he has designed yet uses subtle embellishments on capitols. The rest of the text would remain plain. The capitols, van Krimpen would design and cut himself (KB).

Penthesileia. H. Marsman. Arnhem, Hijman, Stenfert Kroese en Van der Zande, 1925. 15, [1] p., 25 x 18 cm. (Palladium). Printed on the hand-press of Joh. Enschedé en Zonen. Edition of 160 copies. This copy has been printed for the KB. 163 D 28, p. 4-5

A. van Schendel, Verdichtsel van zomerdagen, Maastricht, Boosten & Stols

Jan van Krimpen's binding design of Aruthur van Schendel's Verdichtsel Van Zomer Dagen (1925) shows his elegant solutions by using a single flourish on the descender of the capital G into the negative space below.

Printers mark for The Halcyon Press

The printers mark for The Halcyon Press displays van Krimpen's Open Roman Capitals type used in a ligature. "First applied in R. M. Rilke, Les roses. De mark is used in (nearly) all publications of the Halcyon press as well as in a periodical of the same name, published in 1940-1942. In the early publications of the press the mark is printed with a double rectagular border" in 1927 (John Friedrichs).


Sources:
Meggs History of Graphic Design
The Early Work of Jan Van Krimpen, John Friedrichs 2011
Jan van Krimpen, Wikipedia
KB Koninklijke Bibliotheek. National Library of the Netherlands