Playing card designs by Franz Exler
Reconstruction of playing cards from the original 1903 designs.
In 1903, the publishing house Verlag Anton Schroll und Co. in Vienna published a collection of graphic design works by students of the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and their professors. The collection presented contemporary graphic design typical of the production of the Viennese Art Nouveau and the operation of the Wiener Werkstaette workshops.
Among the designs for posters, wallpaper patterns, textiles and wrapping paper is a unique design for a set of double-headed cards by Franz Exler. It contains only 18 cards with values 7-10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. It can be identified as a deck of 32 so-called piquet cards by the values given in the French suits. Nowadays, such a deck is commonly sold with the Vienna pattern for Belote or Preferance.
The pip cards are reduced to an artistically designed corner "index" of value with suit marks. The court cards are designed with a simple scheme differentiated only by colour. The original card design is also accompanied by a short review by Joseph Aug. Lux, who highlights the simple modern design serving the game without unnecessary graphic clutter. Under the care of the publisher Counter Clockwise, a reconstruction of the original design was published in 2022 with two versions of the reverse side and a cover description just for the above games.
Above: original playing card designs by Franz Exler reconstructed and published by Counter Clockwise, Czech Republic, 2022.
Further work by Franz Exler is documented by interior designs published in 1902-3 in DAS INTERIEUR and in a convolume of work by Josef Hoffmann's students for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.
References
Franz Exler's card designs: Page 1 • Page 2►
Franz Exler's interior designs►
By Marek Brejcha
Czech Republic • Member since June 13, 2024
My relationship with cards grew from playing to collecting and transformed into publishing as well. I am part of the team at Counter Clockwise, a small company that publishes traditional card games.
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