GRAPHIS 57
Volume 6, No. 57, 1955
Walter Herdeg (Editor): GRAPHIS 57. Zurich: Graphis Press 1955. Volume 6, No. 57, 1955. Original edition. A fine original magazine; truly a collectors copy. Cover by Bernard Villmot.
9.25 x 11.75 magazine with 88 pages of b/w and color examples of modern graphic design, circa 1955. Text in in English, French and German.Graphis was (and still is) one of the most important and influential European graphic design publication. Each issue always showcased the best graphic and applied art, including advertising, typography, posters, printmaking, illustrators, book arts, ethnic art, etc, with a focus on modern European designers. Graphis is still being published, but the most influential and groundbreaking years are from the 1940s to the early 1960s.
Excellent original edition of Graphis with a very strong editorial content:
- In Memoriam E. McKnight Kauffer: 10 pages and 32 color and b/w images
- Studio Stile
- Collages and the breakdown of optical unity
- Hiroshi Ohchi
- Piero Fornasetti Printed plates: 6 pages and 23 b/w images
- and much more.
"I believe that one day, when he was young, Fornasetti must have had a truly startling vision. I don't know if it was during the day or by night, but suddenly he must have seen the whole world explode into the air, the whole world and all of history and all the accumulation of its figures, memories and all the stones, the bodies, the trees, the houses and the monuments. Everything flew into the air and finished up in an infinite, opaque cloud full of rubbish that rose like a nuclear mushroom and then, slowly, in chilling silince, began to descent, falling heavily - perhaps on fornasetti's head, or perhaps on his table or on his paintbrush or perhaps even simply on the floor of his room. it must have been a bit like in an Michelangelo Antonioni film ..." Ettore Sottsass
Piero Fornasetti is widely recognized as a visionary designer, artist, illustrator, printer, graphic designer, craftsman, manufacturer and businessman. He established an enduring reputation as a designer with a style that was all his own, a style based on illusionism, architectural perspectives and a host of personal leitmotifs, such as the sun, playing cards and fishes, from which he spun seemingly endless variations. 'He makes objects speak' said Gio Ponti, his friend and longtime collaborator.
These periodicals are much harder to find than the well known Graphis Annuals, which are essentially pictorial "best of" collections and lack the depth and text of the originals. These publications are also more valuable as they are the original documents. Many of the articles are written by important artists, critics and scholars.
out of stock