The Work of Ismar David at the Cary - RIT Libraries - Rochester ...

The Work of
at the Cary Collection
Biographical Sketch (cont’d)
During his residence in Jerusalem, Ismar David made one of
his most important contributions to twentieth century graphic
design with the conception and development of an innovative
family of Hebrew typefaces. His interest in developing Hebrew
types that would be in harmony with the modern spirit and
that would help to transform Hebrew into an everyday
language eventually lead to David Hebrew. This unshaded and
unserifed type design was cast for machine composition in
1954 by the Intertype Corporation and was later available on
the Photon machine. In 1984 the Stempel type foundry
commissioned David to rerender David Hebrew with diacritical
marks for digital composition. To this day David Hebrew is
widely used and much copied. The light appearance of David
Hebrew makes it well suited for setting poetry. It is also favored
for use in exhibition catalogs, finely printed books, and Israeli
newspaper supplements.
Before moving permanently to the United States, Ismar David
made several visits to New York City. His first trip, in 1939, was
to work on the Palestine Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair.
In 1947, he traveled to New York to study printing methods.
With the help of Dr. Robert Leslie, he returned in 1951 to make
arrangements with the Intertype Corporation for the casting of
David Hebrew. And finally in 1952, David visited New York to
design and install an industrial exhibition for Bonds for Israel.
Ismar David emigrated to the United States in 1953, and on
June 3rd of that year, married Hortense Mendel. Ismar had met
Hortense, an associate of Robert Leslie at the Composing
Room, during his 1951 trip to New York to show Intertype his
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