Zurich Laundry | Rental Linen

«The laundry in Zurich produced an exemplary poster in every respect. For it, they chose the image drawn by R. Hardmeyer ten years ago as a motto, the rooster in a long white shirt with a finely ironed high stiff collar against a yellow and black background,» stated the July 1914 issue of the magazine «Das Plakat,» founded by the Berlin dentist Hans Sachs and soon extremely influential—at the time, something like the bible of poster collectors.

Originally not intended as a poster at all, but rather created as a template for a small-format, so-called «Mono» (a form of advertising card at the time), the motif—enlarged to world-format, presumably on the initiative of the Wolfensberger printing company—unfolded such an impact that «Wöschi» in Zurich-Wollishofen not only had it registered as a factory trademark and made it their logo as early as 1904; due to the assumed, yet incorrect, printing year of 1904, the poster was considered until the 1980s as a pioneer, if not the founder, of the modern Swiss poster. Which, however, does not change the fact that a peculiar power still emanates from this proud rooster—always eager to show off and impress—to this day.

Furthermore, the present lithography features a hand-added slogan with which the laundry advertised its rental linen service. Even if we can only speculate for now as to when this addition was made, there is no question that this is a special copy of a special original poster.

Only one other poster by Robert Hardmeyer (1876 – 1919) is known, for a wine shop in Erlenbach on Lake Zurich, printed around 1905 and by far not as impressive as the rooster. He earned his daily bread as a drawing teacher, as an illustrator, and indeed as a designer of motifs for the aforementioned mono-cards.