Poster, Wohnungsreinigung mit Saugluft,

ca. 1910

The vacuum cleaner was invented in the 1860s in the United States but did not appear on the German market until the turn of the twentieth century. It would remain a luxury item there until World War II. Bernhard’s charming poster with its luminous contrasting complementary colors makes it directly obvious how this cleaning appliance works: a strange-looking red imaginary animal with a long, funnel-like trunk sits on a green carpet and vacuums.
Bernhard, who invented the Sachplakat style when he designed a famous poster for Priester-Zündhölzer (matches) in 1903, was perhaps a little overwhelmed in this case by the challenge of providing a simplified portrayal of the technical complexity of early vacuum cleaners. A poster by Hans Neumann from around the same period offers a detailed image of the state-of-the-art household appliance, but here too there is a look of astonishment on the user’s face. (Bettina Richter)