Fritz Khan’s painting Der Menschen als Industriepalast in dreamy animation

Fritz Kahn’s Der Menschen als Industriepalast by Henning Lederer.

Fritz Kahn combined industrial and mechanical functionality with the working wonders of the human body. He was a creative genius whose work remained undiscovered for many years. Until a curious curator Uta Von Debschnitz unearthed them.

Kahn was a Berliner who did well for himself during the period between WWI and WWII. As a trained medical practitioner and microbiologist, he was fascinated by medical illustration as a communication medium for explaining medicine in simple ways.

He was excited by the complex possibilities of the human body. From his own studio he guided a team of illustrators and produced surreal and timeless illustrations that intersected between medical and industrial perspectives.

Kahn was outspoken about Fascism and growing Nazi unrest in the period before WWII. Consequently Kahn’s work was burned and vanished during this period and his reputation in medical illustration vanished along with it.

In the past decade, art enthusiasts and siblings Uta and Thilo von Debschnitz collated a landmark collection of Kahn’s work for publisher Taschen. Suddenly the world rediscovered the magic of Fritz Kahn, the godfather of infographics and medical illustration. Find out more about the book and the man himself.