Description: A collection of advertising posters, labels, packaging and proofs collected and some printed by Charles Holzer (1879-1943), chromolithographer .
Level: Collection (Fonds)
Reference: HAT21/109
Alt Ref No.: Hubners Ltd_ London_Lithography Printers_c1915-20
Extent: 104 items
Admin History: Charles Holzer (1879-1943), was born and educated in the villages of Seefeld and Grosskadolz about seventy miles from Vienna, Austria near the Czech border. After serving a five-year lithography apprenticeship with a printing firm run by monks in Vienna, he became a lithographic journeyman, travelling throughout Austria. Following working at various litho shops in Paris Charles Holzer came to England in 1900, initially to see the British Empire Exhibition at White City, but then decided to settle here. He met his future wife Catherine Marie Louise Collatz (Carrie), daughter of Otto and Eleise Collatz, becoming engaged in December 1903. They were married at High Cross Congregational Church Tottenham on 24th June 1905. He found work at Hubner & Wilson, Viner's, Mazzawati Tea Co, Hurrand & Fuller and several other commercial art studios and litho shops in London. Between 1914 and 1919 he was interned due to his Austrian nationality. After the war he established and ran the chromo-lithography shop at Hubner's Ltd at Brecknock Road, Tufnell Park, London. Here, sets of original lithographic plates were made up for various printers including McCorquodale & Co Ltd. Holzer later introduced photo-lithography at Hubner's.
Charles's son Henry (31st December 1907 - 8th July 2007) served his apprenticeship as a chromo-lithographer at Hubner's from 1922 to 1927. After 1930 Henry studied fine art at the Regent Street Polytechnic and Central School of Arts and Crafts. From 1932-33 he accepted a
teaching post at Hornsey College of Art, taking charge of the litho department after a couple of years. By the late 1950s, he was in charge of the whole printmaking department, then operating at Alexandra Palace.
After his retirement in 1968, Henry Holzer moved with his wife Pam and young family to Thurlton in Norfolk. From his studio he worked full time as a prolific painter and printmaker becoming widely known for his landscapes in oil and pastel. The Usher Gallery, Lincoln gave him a major retrospective in 1970-1 and this was followed by another at Yarmouth Central Library. For about twenty years, from the 1970s, he was President of the Yarmouth and District Art Society. (A fuller CV is on file).
Henry Holzer remembers working on the "Gilbeys Port" advertisement (c.1927) and the fruit labels in this collection, printed from plates produced in Hubner's studio, London. Most of the early posters and labels (pre -1914) came from Charles Holzer's journeyman's portfolio showing samples of his work. CH's first known work in London was for Hubner & Wilson, working on a
Gilby's Invalid Port advertising poster that showed a view of the Pool of London including Tower Bridge designed by Wilson.