Egmont Arens

Egmont Hegel Arens (December 15, 1887 – October 2, 1966) was an American publisher of literature and art, and an industrial designer and commercial artist specializing in marketing and product packaging.

Arens purchased the Washington Square Book Shop at 27 West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, New York City, from Frank Shay, and operated the store from 1917 to 1923.

"[2] A photograph of Arens in the bookshop c. 1918 by Jessie Tarbox Beals is on the Greenwich Village History Digital Archive.

Arens began his fine press printing and publishing career at the Washington Square Book Shop.

A hand-operated printing press was located in the back room, where writers and artists would sit and exchange ideas.

Among the writers published in Playboy were Djuna Barnes, E. E. Cummings, Lola Ridge, Max Weber, Ben Hecht, and D. H. Lawrence.

[6] Arens was art editor for Vanity Fair from 1922 to 1923, when that periodical was printing the work of young innovative artists.

[5] He designed everything from toys, boats, aircraft, kitchen appliances, lamps and lampshades, beer cans, plastic containers, cigarette lighters, juke boxes, watches and baby carriages.

Problems could be turned to advantage; overproduction and under-consumption could be solved by knowing the needs and wishes of consumers, by good design and use of color, by predicting fashion, not fads, and by what is now known as "planned obsolescence."

Arens was president of the Society of Industrial Designers 1949–1950, and a member of the United States delegation to the International Trade Fair, held in Liege, Belgium, in 1955.

This collection contains many documents, photographs and slides relating to his industrial design and fine printing careers.

The Library's Rare Books Department has Arens' donated copy of the Aventuros edition of The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt, along with its related papers and Rockwell Kent illustrations.

[6] In mid-life, apparently tiring of city life, he went West, "where he went completely 'native' by raising apples and alfalfa, driving a chuck wagon, and busting broncos on a ranch.

While he was publishing Playboy, his wife was Josephine "Jo" Bell, a poet and champion of the banned literature of D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway.

[3] His last wife saved many of his papers and shared information with John McAleer, the biographer of Rex Stout, a close friend of Arens.