Warja Honegger-Lavater

Varya Lavater ( born September 28, 1913 in Winterthur, † 3rd May 2007, Zurich - after marrying Varya Honegger - Lavater ) was a Swiss graphic designer and illustrator. The artist is recounting primarily known for her art books and Leporello, the classic fairy tale in an artistic sign language and pictograms.

Life and work

Born in 1913 as a subsidiary of writer Mary Lavater- Sloman and her husband, the engineer Emil Lavater, Varya spent the first nine years of life with her parents in Moscow and Athens, before the family settled in 1922 in Winterthur. Varya was trained at the Zurich School of Design as a graphic designer and practiced this profession, largely along with her future husband, Gottfried Honegger, many years from.

It created, among others, the signets for the Swiss Bank Corporation ( three key ) and the Swiss National Exhibition in 1939. A two-year stay in New York in the years 1958 to 1960 brought a decisive impetus for their future artistic activity. Advertising signs and signals in the street scene from New York, she suggested to use icons as a visual language elements.

1962 was the Museum of Modern Art at the instigation of its director Alfred Barr, William Tell Leporello out in the Varya Lavater with symbols and abstract forms tells a story. The later works, which she calls imageries, including many more Leporello, in collaboration with the Parisian publisher Adrien Maeght and the Basel printer Rudolf Indlekofer.

From 1963 until its breakup in 1972, the couple Honegger - Lavater lived alternately in Paris in the winter and in the summer near Zurich; the second home in Paris kept Varya Lavater in to old age. She had two daughters, Bettina (* 1943) and Cornelia ( b. 1944 ). Varya Lavater died in 2007, she was buried at the Zurich Fluntern Cemetery.

In 2003, the House honored constructively in Zurich, the artist with an exhibition on her 90th birthday. The artistic estate of Varya Lavater located in the Prints and Drawings Department of the Central Library Zurich.

• William Tell Drawn by Honegger - Lavater Varya. St. Basil's Press, Basel / Stuttgart 1962. 9 × 12 cm. 22 piece Leporello. Folded Story 1
• The Cicada and the Ant. Fable of La Fontaine. Übers v. N.O. Scarpi. Lithograph in fanfolding. St. Basil's Press, Basel 1962. 12 × 6.5 cm. 22 S. Green orig paperback. Folded Story 2 Printed as an original lithograph in the studio Emil Matthieu Zurich.
• Mud. Original lithograph by Varya Honneger - Lavater in fanfolding. St. Basil's Press, Basel 1962, 12 × 9 cm. 22 pp. paperback m. red & blue lid. Folded Story 3 - Printed as orig lithograph in the studio Emil Matthieu Zurich.
• The party. The four temperaments: sanguine. Choleric. Phlegmatic. Melancholic or party at ... Orig Lithograph by Honegger - Lavater Varya in fanfolding. St. Basil's Press, Basel 1962. × 12 9 cm. 22 S. Purple paperback. Folded Story 4 - Printed as orig lithograph in the studio Emil Matthieu Zurich.
• La promenade en ville dessine sur pierre par Honegger - Lavater Varya. Basil Press, Bale / Basel / Stuttgart, 1962. 12.1 × 9.1 cm. 22 Bl Leporello Orig Lithograph in Black, Red & Green. Folded Story 5
• The Ugly Duckling - Le Vilain petit canard - The ugly duckling. St. Basil's Press, Basel 1965 Folded Story 15 -. Printed as original lithograph in the studio Emil Matthieu Zurich. The Folded Stories are small works of art, they are designed so that they can be used both as books such as wall decorations ( blurb )
• Varya Honegger - Lavater, Charles Baudelaire: Chacun sa chimeric. ( Each carries at its delusion ). D. Hürlimann 1953 36. 27.3 cm. 2 Bl and 5 original drypoint etchings combined with color lithography. Black handmade paper envelope with title printed in white.