Herbert Matter

Born 1907 in Engelberg, died 1984 in New York. Herbert Matter was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva from 1923 to 1925 and at the Académie Moderne in Paris (by Léger) between 1928 and 1929.
In Paris, he worked with A.M. Cassandre on posters, with Le Corbusier (Jeanneret) on architecture and exhibition design, and with Deberny & Peignot as a photographer and typographer until 1932, the year he returned to Switzerland.

From 1932 until 1936 he worked in Zurich, where he started creating striking photomontage posters for Schweizerische Verkehrszentrale (the Swiss tourism office) in Zurich. He reduced complex information to potent, elemental images relying on photography and a minimum of typography. In 1936, Matter moved to New York, where he worked as a freelance graphic designer for the fashion magazines Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, for the Museum of Modern Art and for several advertising agencies. In 1939, he created designs for the New York Worlds Fair. From 1946 to 1957, he was a staff photographer for Condé Nast Publications, produced the film Works of Calder for the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1949 he was commissioned to do typographic work for the Guggenheim Museum. During the period of 1946 to 1966 he was a design and advertising consultant to the German furniture company Knoll Inc. In later years, he became a Professor for Photography at the Yale University but continued to work as a graphic designer. Herbert Matter received several 1st prizes for his posters with international exhibitions.

Posters by Herbert Matter