MODERN CHAIRS 1918 – 1970
Richard Hollis [Designer]
Boston: Boston Book and Art, 1971. First edition (hardcover edition of the catalog produced for the exhibition held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London form July 22- Aug. 30, 1970). Quarto. Black fabricoid boards titled in red. Photo illustrated dust jacket. Black endpapers. 154 pp. 120 chairs portrayed in black and white photographs. Multiple paper stocks with elaborate and period correct graphic design by Richard Hollis. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. Glossy textblock lightly sunned to edges, otherwise a fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
8.5 x 9.5 hardcover book with 154 pages and 120 chairs portrayed in black and white photographs and fully described with designer credits. American hardcover edition of the Catalogue from an Exhibition at The Whitechapel Art gallery 22 July - 30 August 1970. Printed in London by Lund Humphries. With texts by Carol Hogben, Dennis Young, Reyner Banham, Sherban Cantacuzino and Joseph Rykwert.
Includes work by Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Mart Stam, Mies Van Der Rohe, Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aaalto, Mogens Koch, Kaare Klint, Bruno Mathsson, Salvador Dali, Hans Wegner, Ernest Race, Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Gio Ponti, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Poul Kjaerholm, Antti Nurmesniemi, Bodo Rasch, Borge Mogensen, N. O. Moller, Vico Magistretti, Roger Tallon, Claudio Salocchi, Lise And Hans Isbrand, Adrian And Ditte Heath, Robert Heritage, Kwok Hoi Chan, Angelo Mangiarotti, Designers Associated (Milan), Hans Coray, Carl Jacobs, Ilmari Tapiovaara, Arne Jacobsen, Verner Panton, Carl-Johan Boman, Robin Day, David Rowland, Don Albinson, Joe Colombo, Aldo Jacober, Pierangela D'aniello, Helmut Batzner, Sergio Mazza, Omk Design, John Wright, Jean Schofield, Peter Murdoch, Gerd Lange, Scolari D'urbino Lomazzi, De Pas, Jean-Claude Barray, Kim Moltzer, Gaetano Pesce, Peter Hvidt, Orla Molgaard-Nielsen, Prebem Fabricius, Jogen Kastholm, Tobia Scarpa, Pierre Paulin, Richard Schultz, Yrjo Kukkapuro, Alberto Rosselli, Johannes Larsen, Eero Aarnio, Richard Neagle, David Colwell, Motomi Kawakami, Gatti Paolini Teodoro, Laurent Diptaz, Archizzom Assoiciati, Finn Juhl, Dennis Young, Dieter Rams, Jorn Utzon, Mario Bellini, Afra Scarpa, Carlo Bartoli, John Mascheroni, Osvaldo Borsani, Olivier Mourgue, Cesare Leonardi, Franca Stagi and Alberto Rosselli.
From “Eye,” no. 59, Spring 2006 by Christopher Wilson: “Designer, teacher and author Richard Hollis was born in London in 1934. His early design education was sporadic: he started an Examination in Arts and Crafts course at Chelsea School of Art in 1952, completing it at Wimbledon after two years of national service. He abandoned Wimbledon’s ‘very traditional’ commercial art course in 1957, and began silkscreening wallpapers and posters from a tiny Holborn flat, while working as a photo-engraver’s messenger and attending night classes at nearby Central School of Arts and Crafts.
“Hollis became fascinated by Swiss Modernism while the movement was still fresh and largely unknown in Britain; many of his typographic habits defy the dogma of the style’s later period. Influenced by concrete poetry, Hollis tends to break lines ‘for sense’ rather than neurotic neatness, and he has often made dynamic juxtapositions of unjustified and centred texts on the same plane.
“After teaching first lithography and then design at London College of Printing and Chelsea School of Art in the early 1960s, Hollis co-founded, with construction designer Norman Potter, a new School of Design at West of England College of Art. Among the students were i-D’s Terry Jones, who summarised Hollis’s influence in a Reputations interview (Eye no. 30, vol. 8): ‘I’d never heard of Gestalt until Richard arrived.’ Hollis taught for extended periods at the Central School until 1978, at times alongside one of his early typography heroes, Anthony Froshaug.
“Though Hollis denies that there were particular commissions he hoped to get, his client list reflects his larger concerns, including CND, New Middle East and New Society magazines, and the left-wing Pluto Press. But the majority of his work has been arts-related. His catalogues and mailouts for the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1970-72 and 1978-85) draw on his hands-on knowledge of lithography, exploiting print processes and paste-up to the full. In 1972 he designed John Berger’s (in)famous Ways of Seeing, integrating text and images in a continuous narrative stream, a method Hollis has returned to several times since. In 1974 he married illustrator-author Posy Simmonds; suspiciously Hollisian bits of typesetting occasionally appear in her cartoon strips.
“In many circles, Hollis is still better known as a writer. Graphic Design – a Concise History (1994) is typical of his writing in that historical overview is rooted in extensive design experience. The book also demonstrates Hollis’s skill in dismantling work element by element – see his analyses of posters by Kauffer and Tschichold. Swiss Graphic Design (2006) examines the movement in terms of its known and unknown protagonists, backed up by Hollis’s first-hand knowledge of the design and social context of the time.
“I have worked with Hollis at various times since 1999, and it has become obvious why he has, to some extent, slipped unnoticed through the history he has played a large part in mapping: three-day arguments over line-endings might result in perfection but not publicity. While there are some recognisable traits in Hollis’s work, he has always responded to the needs of the project in hand, with the result that he is difficult to categorise. His writings may have rescued other noteworthy designers from obscurity but Hollis himself has been overlooked in this process. It is also very difficult to get him to talk about himself and his work in isolation – a fact that echoes his belief in what he terms the ‘social process’ between client, designer and recipient, with the designer cast as means, not end.”