Background
She was born Dorothy Karoline Fuhrmann in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on 18 May 1917.
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Dorrit Dekk
Edit ProfileEducation
Reimann School; University of Vienna.
Career
She trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Vienna from 1936-1938, where she was taught by the stage designer Otto Niedermoser and contributed to designs for the theatre and film director Max Reinhardt. Following the Anschluss in 1938, Dekk escaped to London, where she took up a place at the Reimann School through a scholarship arranged by Niedermoser and specialised in graphic design. Following the closure of the Reimann School in 1939, Dekk joined the Women"s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and became a "listener", taking down coded messages by hand which were then sent to Bletchley Park for deciphering.
At the end of the war, she joined the design studio of what was to become the Central Office of Information, working under Reginald Mount.
During her two and a half years, she designed numerous government posters, including the iconic Ministry of Health"s poster "Trap the Germs in Your Handkerchief". Leaving in 1948 to become a freelance designer, Dekk"s clients included Air France, the Orient Shipping Lincolnshire (latterly P&O Orient Lincolnshire), the Post Office Savings Bank, Trust House Forte, Penguin, The Tatler and London Transport.
She also worked as a designer for the Travelling Section of the Festival of Britain, creating the mural "British Sports and Games". In 1956, she became a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists.
She retired from her graphic design practice in 1982, but continued to work as a painter and printmaker right up until her death in December 2014.
