George Salter
George Salter (5 October 1897 – 31 October 1967), born Georg Salter, was an originally German, and from 1940 onwards an American book cover designer. He revolutionized cover design for books. He claimed worldwide fame for his design for Alfred Döblins Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Also recorded as Georg Salter
George Salter
Warren.williams · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 1897 · Bremen.
- Died
- 1967 · New York City.
- Nationality
- United States · Germany
- Occupation
- artist · illustrator · designer
- Languages
- German
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George Salter (5 October 1897 – 31 October 1967), born Georg Salter, was an originally German, and from 1940 onwards an American book cover designer. He revolutionized cover design for books. He claimed worldwide fame for his design for Alfred Döblins Berlin Alexanderplatz.
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wikidata · Q834817 · wikipedia · George Salter
In this article
Life
Life
Georg Salter was born in Bremen, the child of a Hamburg musician. In the year of his birth, his parents converted from Judaism to Christian faith. With his parents and three siblings he moved to Berlin. After finishing school and serving in the military, he studied in the art craft school in Berlin. 1921, he began work as set designer. Starting in 1927, he started working as designer for the publisher Die Schmiede. Salter taught at the Municipal Art School in Berlin in the early 1930s, where he taught designer Hans Barschel. In November 1934 Salter emigrated to the US and started living in New York, where he immediately began to design book jackets for US publishers. He became an American citizen in 1940. Salter was married to Agnes O'Shea and had one daughter, Janet. He died in New York City on October 31, 1967.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
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Works and production
Works and production
Catalogued output is recorded as follows.
Cover design from the first-edition dust jacket of the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged by the Russian-American writer Ayn Rand.
Published by Random House. Jacket design by George Salter. · Scan via Heritage Auctions Lot #36334. Cropped from the original image.
First-edition dust jacket of the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged by the Russian-American writer Ayn Rand.
Published by Random House. Jacket design by George Salter. Photo portrait of Rand by Phyllis Cerf. · Scan via Heritage Auctions Lot #36545. Cropped from the original image and retouched
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Bremen.
Birth place
New York City.
Death place
Literature
• Thomas S. Hansen: Classic Book Jackets. The Design Legacy of George Salter. Princeton Architectural Press, New York: 2005
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Achim Bonte: Urheber vertrieben. Werke weiter verwertet. Georg Salter im „Dritten Reich“. In: Aus dem Antiquariat, Neue Folge 18, 2020, S. 142–151.
- 2.Deutsche Biographie, q. v.
- 3.Jürgen Holstein: Georg Salter. Bucheinbände und Schutzumschläge aus der Berliner Zeit 1922–1934, 2003, S. 15
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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