The Richard Gans Foundry
existed in Spain from 1888 til 1975. Richard Gans emigrated from Austria to
Spain in 1874. He died in 1925. Until 1936 the foundry was led by Mauricio
Wiesenthal, but in 1936, his children, Ricardo, Manuel and Amalia Gans Gimeno,
now adults, took over. Ricardo and Manuel were assassinated during the Civil
War.
The foundry was then used to make ammunition, and after the
war, Amalia Gans and then Reinaldo Leger Tittel started anew in run-down
buildings.
Throughout its existence, types were designed by a number of
experts from within and outside the foundry.
Designers included Jose Ausejo Matute, Antonio Bilbao, the
son Ricardo Gans, and the famous Carl Winkow.
In the post-war era, Reinaldo Leger and Amalia Garcia Gans
made typographic decisions on which types to produce.
Six specimen books were published. The first and second in
1883 and 1903. Editions 3 through 6 appeared in the period 1903-1922. In 1965,
a small catalog was published under the name Tipos Gans.
The National Library in Madrid has a Muestrario de
Richard Gans (Madrid, 1903, 410 p.) and a Catalogo provisional (Madrid,
1950).
Until 1920, there were no original types. Almost everything
in the specimen books of that era came from German foundries, principally
Wilhelm Wöllmer in Berlin and Edmund Koch in Magdeburg. |