Publishing house founded in 1920 by young bibliophile Abraham Horodisch and book dealer and graphic artist Siegfried Pfankuch. Aimed to publish literary masterpieces in luxuriously hand-bound editions. Added print publishing in early 1922, which flourished after art patron Ernst Rathenau and art historian Hubert Baumgärtel, who had a particular interest in Expressionist prints, joined the operation the same year. A print collector himself, Rathenau had a decisive influence on Euphorion's program, especially the periodical in portfolio form Die Schaffenden (The creators) (1918–32), which Horodisch acquired from Gustav Kiepenheuer by 1923. He also supported the publishing house financially. Published prints—as single editions or in illustrated books and portfolios—by Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Kubin, Ludwig Meidner, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, among others. Began a special monograph series in 1931 titled Graphik der Gegenwart (Contemporary prints), but was unable to publish more than one volume (on Erich Heckel). Issued print catalogues raisonnés on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, and Schmidt-Rottluff. Experienced sales difficulties after 1924 due to oversaturated print market. Rathenau ran the publishing house by himself from 1927 until the Nazis came to power; he emigrated to the United States in 1938.

Selected Bibliography

Berger, Friedemann, and Beate Jahn, eds. Die Schaffenden: Eine Auswahl der Jahrgänge I bis III und Katalog des Mappenwerkes. Leipzig and Weimar: Kiepenheuer; and Berlin: Publica Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984.

Horodisch, Abraham. "Der Euphorion Verlag." Imprimatur: ein Jahrbuch für Bücherfreunde, vol. 6 (1969): 105–12.