HERBERT LEUPIN: PLAKATE | POSTERS
Manuel Gasser [text]
Manuel Gasser [text]: HERBERT LEUPIN: PLAKATE | POSTERS. Zurich: Hans Rudolf Hug, 1957. Original edition. Text in German and English. One near fine minus poster [27.25" x 39.25”], a near fine minus portfolio of 24 poster plates [11.25" x 15"] with slight age-toning around their edges, and a near fine minus staple-bound booklet in a shelfworn presentation folder: the folder's bottom corners are slightly rough and there is a 2" inch tear along the front cover's left-hand seam. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print.
11.5" x 15" presentation folder containing a poster for Knie [27.25" x 39.25" folded into ninths; same image is also included in the portfolio], a portfolio of 24 tipped-in plates on cream stock [11.25" x 15"], and a near fine staple-bound booklet [11.25" x 15"]. Booklet contains an essay by Gasser, information for each poster including the date [dates range from 1949 - 1957], and a short biography of Herbert Leupin. Beautifully designed and printed in Zurich.
Clients and products include florists, a resort, Knie Swiss National Circus, Basle Development Commission, City of Cologne, Rossli Cigars, Agfa, Bata Shoes, Cigarettes, Eptinger Mineral Water, rum, Tribune de Lausanne, Pril, Coca-Cola, coffee extract, Ford, Sandoz, chocolate, Pepita, and lightbulbs.
Excerpted from the website for Artifiche: “Herbert Leupin was born in Beinwil am See in 1918, lived in Basel and later in his live he moved to the Italian Part of Switzerland where he died in 1999.
Between 1932 and 1935, he was trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel where he was taught by teachers such as Paul Kammüller, Hermann Eidenbenz and Donald Brun. After graduating, he did a internship at the advertising atelier Eidenbenz in Basel. From 1935 to 1936, he attended the Ecole Paul Colin in Paris. Despite that time in France, he maintained his Swiss traditional approach that valued professionalism and discipline.
Herbert Leupin started as independant freelance graphic designer in 1938 and soon became one of the most important poster artists in Switzerland. In the late ´30s, his style was illustrative but soon, he became famous for his innovative humorous figures and his fresh and colorful style. His best posters tell small stories and translate he company‘s name into a picture.
In many ways, Herbert Leupin was the leading figure in poster design in the fifties. Due to his wide range of styles and his creative humor, even his contemporaries saw him as one of the best graphic artist of the time. For some of the several hundred posters he created, he received important awards in Germany, Switzerland and the US such as the Medal Award of Art Directors Club in Chicago in 1960.”