MAX HUBER
Bruno Munari [introduction]
Bruno Munari [introduction]: MAX HUBER. Chiasso: Galleria Mosaico Chiasso, 1971. First edition. Text in Italian. Thick glossy printed and stapled wrappers. 32 pp. 8 color and 28 black and white illustrations. Title page heavily foxed. Textblock edges lihtly sunned. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A very good copy.
5.85 x 8.25 softcover book with 32 pages and 8 color plates and 28 black and white illustrations. Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the Galleria Mosaico Chiasso that opened on Friday October 22, 1971.
"He was a splendid mix; he had irrepressible natural talent and a faultless drawing hand; he possessed the lively candour of the eternal child; he was a true product of the Swiss School; he loved innovatory research; he boasted a lively curiosity, being quick to latch on - not without irony - to the most unpredictable ideas, and he worked with the serious precision of the first-rate professional." -- Giampiero Bosoni from MAX HUBER [Phaidon Press, 2006]
Max Huber (1919-1992) moved to Milan in order to avoid being drafted into the Swiss army. He worked for Studio Boggeri until Italy joined the war in 1941, forcing Huber to return to his home country where he collaborated with Werner Bischof and Emil Schultness on the influential art magazine 'Du.' As a member of the art group Allianz he exhibits his abstract artwork at the Kunsthaus Zurich with Max Bill, Leo Leuppi, Richard Lohse and Camille Graeser.
After the war Huber returned to Milan where he rubbed shoulders with the postwar Italian intelligentsia [Cesare Pavese, Natalia Ginzburg, Elio Vittorini, Franco Fortini, Ettore Sottsass, Achille Castiglioni and Albe Steiner] all who shared the belief that design had the capacity to restore the human values misplaced during the war.
From 1950 to 1954 Huber worked for the department store La Rinascente, also known as "Elle Erre", the time Albert Steiner was art director of their Advertising Office. The two also worked on the VIII Triennale di Milano. With Achille Castiglioni he designed large-scale installations for RAI, Eni and Montecatini. In 1954 Huber was awarded the prestigious Compasso dπOro and in 1958 he travels to the US as a speaker to the First International Seminar on Typography (New York Art Directors Club).
In 1965 the Nippon Design Committee organized an exhibition of Huber's work at Matsuya Design Gallery in Tokyo. This trip established close ties with Japan that culminated with his marriage to the artist and illustrator Aoi Kono. Kono was instrumental in the development of m.a.x.museo, a museum dedicated to his name and preserving his personal archive, that opened in Chiasso in 2005.