Basic Color: An Interpretation of the Ostwald Theory by Egbert Jacobson [Morton Goldsholl]

Basic Color: An Interpretation of the Ostwald Theory by Egbert Jacobson, Director of the Department of Design, Container Corporation of America, 1948. 1st ed., Paul Theobald, Chicago, USA. 8.75 x 11.25, pp. 208, English text. Dust jacket, layout and typography by Morton Goldsholl.

In (20) chapters, Jacobson discusses the basic principles of color organization, color harmony and their practical applications. With a Preface, Introduction, Appendix and extensive Bibliography.

In 1944 Goldsholl established an important friendship with Chicago’s preeminent bookseller turned publisher, the German-born Paul Theobald. For this project, he and his wife Millie, presented complex subject matter in a practical presentation of carefully arranged pages, lavishly illustrated with crystal-clear diagrams, spectrums, analyses and more—over 460 to be precise—of which 150 were printed in color.

The book’s typography combines two widely different typefaces with varying textures—Bodoni Book and Futura, a popular Modernist principle of mixing type promoted by Jan Tschichold and repeatedly used by György Kepes.

Jacobson, praised the Goldsholls in his preface, “I have especially to thank Mr. Morton Goldsholl for sympathetic help in the design of the book and much too freely given time. His jacket illustration and page-by-page study of every typographic problem give the volume its effective and legible character. All charts and diagrams except those in the Analyses were drawn by him and Mrs. Goldsholl.”

A near fine black hardcover cloth with moderate toning to the endpapers. In it’s very good complete dust jacket with light wear to the corners and a horizontal crease and small tear along the top margin. A wonderful copy of an often abused volume.