Herbert Leupin

Herbert LEUPIN was born in Beinwil am See in 1916. He lived in Basel and later in his life he moved to the Italian part of Switzerland, where he died in 1999.

Between 1932 and 1935, he was trained at the Basel School of Arts and Crafts, where he was taught by teachers such as Paul Kammüller, Hermann Eidenbenz and Donald Brun. After graduating, he did an internship at the Eidenbenz advertising firm in Basel. From 1935 to 1936, he attended the Ecole Paul Colin in Paris.

Herbert Leupin started out as an independent freelance graphic designer in 1938 and soon became one of the most important poster artists in Switzerland. In the late 1930s his style was illustrative, but soon he became famous for his innovative, humorous figures and his fresh and colourful style. His best posters tell stories and translate the company’s name into a picture. His innovative object posters for companies like Eptinger, Bata, Knie, Coca-Cola and various publishers became world-famous and today some of them are rare collector’s items. 

In many ways, Herbert Leupin was the leading figure in poster design in the fifties. Due to his wide range of styles and his creative humour, even his contemporaries saw him as one of the best graphic artists of the time. For some of the several hundred posters he created, he received important awards in Germany, Switzerland and the US such as the Medal Award of the Art Directors Club of Chicago in 1960.

Leupin illustrated countless children’s books. From 1970 onwards, he mostly lived in the Ticino and worked exclusively as a painter.

Posters by Herbert Leupin