Herbert Matter
Herbert Matter ( born April 25, 1907 in Engelberg, † 8 May 1984 in Southampton (New York)) was a Swiss and American photographer and graphic designer. Through its innovative and experimental work he contributed to the development of graphic design.
Life
Matter spent his high school years at the convent school of Engelberg. Subsequently he studied from 1925-1927 painting at the École des Beaux -Arts in Geneva and 1928-1929 at the Académie de l' Art Moderne in Paris under Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. His experimentation with a Rollei camera replaced the painting gradually in favor of photography. 1929 began his career as a graphic designer at the Paris advertising studio Deberny & Peignot. Here he studied under Le Corbusier and AM Cassandre the intricacies of typography know.
In 1932 he returned to Switzerland and designed, among other things, a poster series for the Swiss Tourist Office. The posters were internationally considerable attention because of the use of photomontage and typography. After a tour of the U.S., which he got in 1936 in lieu of payment for his work for a Swiss ballet company, he decided to remain in the United States. By referring a friend, he came into contact with Alexei Brodowitsch. This Matter was commissioned to take photographs for the fashion magazine Harper 's Bazaar. Further orders for Vogue, Arts & Architecture, Fortune Magazine, and Town and Country followed. During the Second World War he worked as a design consultant for various companies.
1944 Herbert Matter got from the Museum of Modern Art commissioned his friend and neighbor, the sculptor Alexander Calder, to make a film. Works by Calder was his first cinematic attempt and was a great success. For this film, John Cage composed the music.
From 1952 to 1978 Herbert Matter taught as a professor of graphic design and photography at Yale University. From 1958 to 1969 he was a consultant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 1960 he began the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti to photograph. This work lasted 25 years and resulted in a comprehensive book that was not published until after his death.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Herbert Matter was a major representative of the New York art scene. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Philip Guston were among his artist friends. The first retrospective of his work was an exhibition in 1978 at Yale University. In the same year, the Kunsthaus Zurich honored the artist with an exhibition of his early work of 1930. Many honors and awards in Europe and America followed. Herbert Matter died age of 77 in Southampton, New York.
Work
Herbert Matter is regarded as the founder of modern photographic poster in Switzerland. In the early 1930s, he integrated the medium of photography in convincing the hitherto purely graphic advertising graphic. Photomontage in conjunction with typography were his distinctive style means by which he found a good balance between art and commerce. Another field of activity was the illustration of magazines and the design of front pages.
Herbert Matter as a photographer documented the work of many artists. Outstanding feature here is the documentation of the work of Alberto Giacometti. In a letter to Matter Giacometti writes: "... and I am eager to tell you how very happy I made this series of beautiful photos. [ ... ] It is the most beautiful photographs ever made of my work and in addition, they radiate a unique reality far from sufficient. [ ... ] I can not tell you how excited I am about your work and how do you prefer to Matter, to thank you for all that you do ... " GIACOMETTI TO MATTER, May 19, 1961
Exhibitions (selection)
Literature (selection )
- Poets Camera, Studio Publications, New York 1949
- Photographs of Graphic Symbols, The American Institute of Graphic Arts, New York 1961
- Alberto Giacometti, Benteli, Bern 1987
- Hebert Matter photo graphic designer. Sehformen time. The work of the twenties and thirties, Lars Müller, Baden 1995
- Kurt Blum and Herbert Metter: Two Swiss Artists Encounter Mark Rothko, Galerie Beyeler, Basel 2005