Julius Klinger (1876–1942) is recognized as a leading poster designer and one of the most gifted graphic artists of his generation. Based in Berlin and Vienna, he produced a remarkable body of work over four decades, including powerful posters, illustrations for books and magazines, typefaces, designs for ornament, and graphic identity schemes for varied clients.

Klinger’s career overlapped with the origins of graphic design as a professional field. Julius Klinger: Posters for a Modern Age demonstrates his mastery of a disparate set of skills—ornament, typography, and figure drawing—that would become integral to his profession and that made him a pioneer of the modern advertising poster. Klinger emerges as an emblematic figure in a number of other respects: as a link between creative circles of two culturally vibrant cities, as a designer who strove to serve his clients’ needs while asserting his own identity, as a European fascinated by America, and as a Jew whose life was cut short by Nazi genocide.

Jonathan Mogul is associate director for curatorial and educational affairs at The Wolfsonian–FIU. In that position, he oversees the museum’s exhibition program, publications, its international fellowship program, and its youth and adult educational programs. He has curated or co-curated more than a dozen exhibitions at The Wolfsonian.