Max Hoff (Illustrator)

Max Hoff ( also Max courtyard, actually Maximilian Hofbauer YES, * 1903 in Vienna, † 1985) was an Austrian illustrator. His most important works were printed advertising for Simpsons of Piccadilly and the Astor cigarettes. His drawing style wonderfully presented the fashion of the 1950s and 1960s in Western Europe and North America.

Biography

The beginnings

Max Hoff studied portrait and landscape painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, especially where he made a name for himself through his illustrations of scenery and costumes. Some of his fashion illustrations have been published in the European Journal International Textiles under the alias Max courtyard where Alec Simpson - the shareholders Simpsons of Piccadilly - she saw for the first time.

Simpsons of Piccadilly

In 1936 Alec Simpson Max Hoff brought - at the age of 33 years - to London and commissioned with the creation of these illustrations, handsome, brilliant, athletic men who wore Simpson clothes. Since then represented Hoffs drawings the Simpson - style one-quarter of a century, supplemented later - as Simpson Women's Fashion up in his offer - by fashionable, elegant and charming ladies.

First used for direct mail, were Hoffs Illustrations trademark of Simpson. Bill Crawford - advertising consultants Simpsons - quickly realized the power of expression of the character and style, when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 - convinced Max Hoff to London to move. There Hoff married in December of the same year Margaret Popper and also there are his two children later born.

Hoffs drawings from impeccably dressed and well- sentient men, almost always shown smiling and relaxed, became the trademark of the advertising posters of DAKS Simpson and men's fashion up to the early 1960s.

Fewa and Astor cigarettes

In the late 1950s Hoff began to work in Frankfurt for the German advertising agency Hanns W. Brose GmbH and its charismatic namesake and owner Hanns Walter Brose. 1958, in a short campaign of only eight ads - justified by the limited budget the client Böhme fat Chemie GmbH - advertised his illustrations for Fewa mild detergent.

Cooperation with Brose worked very well, so that - as Simpson decided its advertising campaign to renew - Hoff from 1961 exclusively for the Hanns W. Brose GmbH recorded.

This was due also that Hanns W. Brose, of the Astor brand cigarettes Reemtsma had for years under contract, wanted to complete an additional advertising contract Reemtsmas more cigarettes brand new house castle. Therefore, it agreed in 1956 to relocate with Philipp F. Reemtsma advertising for Astor in his office to Hamburg, which has been run by his son Heinz Martin Brose.

In 1961 Heinz Martin Brose decided to campaign for Astor cigarettes from the ground up and dedicated to renew hope for this. Thus began Hoff's most famous advertising campaign Rendezvous of prominence, which ran until 1967. The target group was the German and later the international high society first. Max Hoff made ​​more than 200 drawings for this series, which ran in many countries and advertised in at least six languages ​​for Astor.