Name Georg Hirth | Role Writer | |
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Died March 28, 1916, Munich, Germany Books Picture Book of the Graphic Arts: Thirty-Five Hundred Woodcuts, Etchings, and Engravings by the Masters 1500-1800 | ||
Georg Hirth (13 July 1841 – 28 March 1916) was a German writer, journalist and publisher. He is best known for founding the cultural magazine Jugend in 1896, which was instrumental in popularizing Art Nouveau.
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Biography
Hirth was born in Tonna, present-day Thuringia in 1841, studied to be an economist in Gotha and in Leipzig, and after a career working as a journalist he founded the magazine Jugend: Münchner illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben (English: Youth: the illustrated weekly magazine of art and lifestyle of Munich). This publication, which reflected the modernist ideals that were circulating at the time among artists, was instrumental in promoting the style of Art Nouveau in Germany. As a result, the magazine's name was adopted as the most common German-language term for the movement: Jugendstil ("Jugend-style"). Hirth also coined the term "Secession" to represent the spirit of the various modern and reactionary movements of the era. He died in Tegernsee in 1916.