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Furniture of Our Times – Herman Miller Collection at Contura, Basel

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SOLD

Creator Armin Hofmann
Printing year 1962
Sheet size (cm) 128×90
Printing technique Offset
Printer Wassermann
Condition A-
Asking price 0 CHF
Categories Design & Architecture, Household & Department Stores

Original poster commissioned from Armin Hofmann by the Basel-based Contura in 1962 on the occasion of its exhibition of furniture produced by Herman Miller – the US company that continues to produce designs by Charles & Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and George Nelson, among others, which are still considered absolute classics today. Undoubtedly one of Hofmann’s two or three most sought-after posters, which plays with the contrasts of light and dark on the one hand and the strict typography and organic forms of the furniture silhouettes on the other; hardly ever to be found on the market.

Willi Fehlbaum – father of the current Chairman Emeritus of Vitra AG, Rolf Fehlbaum – founded Vitra in Weil am Rhein in 1950; Vitra AG followed in Switzerland in 1953. Also in 1953, Fehlbaum senior came across the furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames in the USA, whereupon he acquired the production rights for the European market from the manufacturer Herman Miller in 1957 – the start of Vitra’s Herman Miller Collection, which also included George Nelson’s furniture. In Switzerland, the furniture was initially distributed by the subsidiary Contura S.A.; since 1983, the furniture has been sold exclusively under the Vitra label.

And for the sake of completeness: The Swiss graphic designer Armin Hofmann (1920 – 2020) is recognized for his role in developing the International Typographic Style, a graphic design movement characterized by clarity and simplicity of form.

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