Wörner Verlag

WÖRNER VERLAG

As the world's only publisher specializing exclusively in products of the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, we offer a comprehensive range of different Hundertwasser products and more than three decades of experience in producing the highest quality art prints. A long-standing, friendly collaboration with Hundertwasser and the design in line with his specifications form the basis for our current selection and the motivation to do justice to his artistic ambitions in all of our products. Hundertwasser himself has always said that reproductions of his work should be better than the original as they will be seen by a lot more people. In line with his directions, additional colours such as gold, silver, special red, matt black and matt paint are used as well as shiny foil embossings and UV laquer to create exceptional and individual premium artistic prints which are unique in terms of their appearence and quality.

COMPANY PHILOSOPHY / MISSION STATEMENT

Quality, individuality, and fairness are the cornerstones of our corporate philosophy. To guarantee the quality of our products we solely print in Germany and Switzerland with modern print- and manufacturing techniques. Our entitlement is the usage of extra colors like gold, silver, special-red, matt black, and matt paint as well as metal-foil embossings and UV-varnish finishing. This allows us to produce distinguished and individual premium art prints, which are accepted enthusiastically by our customers for the visual appearance and quality. Highest quality is not only visible in our high-quality produced prints, but also the way we handle our customer’s orders. Our individuality is not only based on our unique assortment of products and our specialization on Hundertwasser products, but also on the fact, that we as a tradition-conscious family business work on your requests and orders personally, flexibly, and quick. To us, fairness is the sustainable handling of our customers, suppliers, staff and the environment. Since 2012 we have produced our prints on FSC paper and partially climate neutral to protect the nature, which Hundertwasser and ourselves hold in high regard. We have maintained a fair work relationship with our staff and most regional suppliers for several decades. We treat our customers with honesty and kindness. The result of our mission statement is in matters of quality, visual appearance, individuality with a distinguished assortment as well as a high quality, competent, personal and creative customer service.

COMPANY’S HISTORY

Today’s print competence goes back to the in the 50s by Herrmann Wörner founded industrial printing company “Industriedruckerei Wörner”, in which one of the founders -Bernd Wörner- of today’s “Wörner Verlag GmbH” completed his vocational training as typesetter. Bernd Wörner founded 1987 the one-man business “Bernd Wörner Druckerei und Verlag” in Rutesheim. Through his acquaintanceship, later friendship, with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and his manager Joram Harel and rapid increasing popularity of Hundertwasser, Wörner decided to concentrate intensively on Hundertwasser products. At the beginning of the 90s, the Hundertwasser calendar printing business boomed. Hence,  it was decided that the company would stop the printing and just specialize on the calendar printing business and simply supply the external partners of production with print-know-how. With the joining of Gregor Wörner in 2009 the company is now in their third generation and began the expansion of publishing activities in matters of national and international marketing of Hundertwasser art prints and posters. Since 2013 “Wörner Verlag GmbH” exists in the form of a family business managed by Bernd and Gregor Wörner. “Wörner Verlag GmbH” specialized solely on international publishing of Hundertwasser print products.

THE PRODUCTS

Our range of Hundertwasser products includes calendars, art prints, art cards, bookmarks, pens, granolithographies, framed art prints, greeting cards, postcards, notebooks, address books and many other products based on works by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Almost all reproductions of Hundertwasser works are printed mirror-inverted. This was done at Hundertwasser's suggestion to open up a new dimension and to discover the pictures in a new light. Furthermore, fakes and imitations are made more difficult. Hundertwasser knew that the medium of printing is not the same as painting, which is applied in many layers on paper or canvas using a brush with watercolour, tempera or oil paints. They are two different media, two different techniques, which are not transferable or translatable 1:1. Hundertwasser therefore never attempted to convert an image into a print, but saw the image as the starting point for a new printed work. He has taken advantage of the advantages and possibilities of printing on paper and, with the help of sophisticated printing techniques, has further developed, altered and designed the work, resulting in a new original. Since, in contrast to the original, which is unique, the printed products are produced in print runs and are therefore seen by even more people, it was of utmost importance to Hundertwasser that the works of printing technology were even better and more effective than the original paintings, which served as the starting point. For this reason, he often instructed them to change the colours or details of the works or to enhance the prints with special metal foil embossing or matt and gloss effects. Over the decades Hundertwasser has applied and co-developed many new printing techniques. The matt black background was also Hundertwasser's wish. Through this his pictures should shine like out of the darkness.