OUT NOW: OUR FALL 2025 CATALOGUE

Continuity and New Beginnings or What is Enlightenment?

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity [...] Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding!”

Immanuel Kant wrote these words in 1784, and they serve as our compass for the  2025 program.

With intelligence, curiosity, and passion, we present outstanding monographs on artists such as Raoul Hausmann, Suzanne Duchamp, Yayoi Kusama, and Vija Celmins. Unpublished photographs by Fred Herzog offer fresh insights into the history of photography. Two bibliophilic treasures enrich the program: The Karlsruhe Sketchbook by Caspar David Friedrich and Flora, the drawing cycle by Hilma af Klint – both published as stunningly produced facsimiles.

2025 is a special year for us: Hatje Cantz turns 80. A reason to celebrate – and to reflect. What does it mean to have published books for eight decades, across generations, within evolving structures yet united by a shared commitment? Gerd Hatje (1915–2007) founded the Humanitas Verlag in 1945, renamed it Verlag Gerd Hatje in 1947, and sold it to Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei in 1990. Since 1999, the imprint has been known as Hatje Cantz Verlag, and in 2011 it became part of the Ganske Publishing Group in Hamburg. A story of change – yet of remarkable continuity: Over the decades, what has connected everyone working at this publishing house is a commitment to quality, a passion for great art, close relationships with people, and a deep engagement with the present. People's business – or passion for what we do.

To mark the anniversary, we've made this spirit visible: artist Stefan Marx has portrayed our team – everyone who works on our books every day. And because change is part of progress, we'll be restructuring our distribution this fall, launching new publishing software, and developing a book that looks back on 80 years of publishing and art history.

Will we succeed in all this? Will enlightenment help us? Will you love our books as much as we hope? – We're curious and excited to see you again: at book fairs, in stores, in our Berlin office, and wherever art meets life.

Warm regards,

Nicola von Velsen and the team of Hatje Cantz