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Leben und Werk des Typographen Jan Tschichold. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1977
“The book Leben und Werk des Typographen Jan Tschichold, published in 1977 in Dresden, was essentially an amplification of the TM [Typographische Monatsblätter] special issue: the same essay by ‘Reminiscor’, a conspectus of work in reproduction (...), and a bibliography. To this was added five of Tschichold’s most substantial essays in reprint. The project of this Leben und Werk had been started during the subject’s lifetime, and he had evidently contributed to the plan of it. In effect it was Tschichold’s monument to himself. Such a monograph, issued in the fullness of a subject’s life, is quite usual in art and design publishing, and this example of the genre was and still is a usefull and touching work. In its design and production, the Leben und Werk was especially touching. It seemed to represent a return for Tschichold to the time and place of his youth: though in 1977, Dresden was then in the East Germany of the ‘Democratic Republic’. Tschichold seemed to be going out of his way to avoid both his adopted country of Switzerland and what was then West Germany. Printed letterpress, at a time when that technic was all but finished, the Leben und Werk possesses the gravity and dignity that one might expect from its subject, and yet -this was also typical of him- it is modest and self-denying in its design.”
Christopher Burke. Active literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography. London: Hyphen Press, 2007 (p. 7)