NAPLES
Walter Allner [Designer]
Walter Allner [Designer]: NAPLES. Lissone, Italy: Arti Grafiche Meroni, [1984]. Original impression. 26.5 x 38 - inch [67.31 x 96.52 cm] trim size image printed via offset lithography on a semi-gloss sheet. A fine, fresh example.
26.5 x 38 - inch [67.31 x 96.52 cm]poster designed by Walter Allner “A poster commissioned by Napoli ’99 Foundation as a contribution towards the cultural image of the city.”
The Naples NinetyNine Foundation sponsored a series of 25 posters from 1984 – 1986 with the primary objective of contributing to the knowledge, promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage of Naples and Southern Italy.
The 25 participating designers were Walter Allner, Stuart B. Ash, Saul Bass, Bruce Blackburn, Pierluigi Cerri, Ivan Chermayeff, Giulio Confalonieri, Heinz Edelmann, Gene Federico, Alan Fletcher, Jean-Michel Folon, André François, Milton Glaser, Tomás Gonda, F H K Henrion, David Hillman, Takenobu Igarashi, Mervyn Kurlansky, Italo Lupi, John Mcconnell, Armando Milani, Art Paul, Tullio Pericoli, Arnold Schwartzman, and Massimo Vignelli.
Their interpretations of the city cover a wide range of themes: architecture, poetry, music, the earthquake, pollution, Vesuvius. The 25 posters have been exhibited in Naples, Rome, Los Angeles, Dundee, and Lahti. The project won the award for the best social graphics at the 1987 Lahden Biennal Exhibition. Collect them all!
Walter Allner (1909 – 2006) was a noted designer, typographer and painter was trained at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers, Vasily Kandisky and Joost Schmidt. He also worked for a short time with Otto Neurath, inventor of the Isoype, at the Österreichisches Gesellschafts und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna. He also worked briefly with Piet Zwart, the influential Dutch typographer.
Allner worked for Graphis Paris from 1945 to 1948 and emigrated to the United States in 1949 where he worked for several corporate clients, including Johnson and Johnson (1954-1955) and RCA Records, (1965-1967) as well as the American Cancer Society, I.T.T. and I.B.M. He is most noted for his tenure as Art Director at Fortune magazine from 1962 to 1974.
He personally created 79 covers for Fortune magazine and was known for his innovative use of computers in his design. He is recognized as the designer of the first computer-generated cover of a national magazine for the annual Fortune 500 issue. "Long before the personal computer revolutionized the methods used to produce graphic design, Mr. Allner predicted the integration of aesthetics and advanced technology, and so worked directly with computer engineers whenever he could." (Heller)
Allner left Fortune magazine in 1974 and taught and lectured and as Steven Heller writes, his motto was "Raise the aesthetic standard - the public is more perceptive than you think."