Vote for List 4 | Social Democrats

Ernst Keller is nothing less than the father of Swiss graphic design – less because he created countless masterpieces than because, as a teacher of applied graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich between 1918 and 1956, he prepared the ground that made countless masterpieces possible in the first place.

Even before the First World War, he senses that, much as the letter was once abstracted from pictograms, painted elements must also be radically stylized into signs. At the same time, he places writing at the center, for instance by utilizing its pictorial quality. Above all, however, Keller (1891–1968) is convinced that every task requires its own approach—which is why he avoids the development of a «style.» With this modern understanding of visual design and applied art, he influences numerous students who would go on to shape the history not only of Swiss graphic design: Walter Käch, Richard Paul Lohse, Heinrich Steiner, Walter Herdeg, Josef Müller-Brockmann, or Armin Hofmann, to name just a few who are (also) significant for the Swiss poster.

Which is not to say that Keller hadn't also designed several posters that endured: his «Neues Heim» in 1926, for example, or in 1933 the emblematic 4 for the Social Democrats on the occasion of the early Zurich municipal elections—an epochal showdown with great symbolism, incidentally, which beforehand caused street battles, particularly between the left and the Frontists emboldened by Hitler's rise. The Social Democrats were ultimately able to defend their absolute majority in both parliament and the city government won in 1931—something they would never manage to do again, thanks in part to overcoming the Great Depression.

To the best of our knowledge, this poster is on the market for the very first time.

Possibly also of interest is the poster originally created in 1926, which Keller recomposed on the occasion of the competition that emerged from this exhibition:
Furniture Competition – The New Home