Non-Representational Painting in Switzerland – Kunstmuseum Winterthur

Original poster designed by Richard Paul Lohse, a representative of the Zurich Concretists alongside Max Bill, on the occasion of the survey exhibition Non-figurative Painting in Switzerland, which premiered in Neuchâtel in 1957 («La peinture abstraite en Suisse»). Following the exhibition in Winterthur, the Pro Helvetia cultural foundation brought the show—which was dedicated primarily to geometric abstraction—to West Berlin, marking the point at which official Switzerland definitively accepted domestic contemporary, i.e., abstract, art to the extent that it dared to present it abroad on a larger scale.

Even if Lohse (1902 – 1988) is primarily regarded today as a co-founder of constructive-concrete art, he started out as a commercial artist. At the age of 16, he began an apprenticeship as an advertising illustrator in the studio of Max Dalang, the first actual Swiss advertising agency, where he came into contact with photomontage. In 1930, he set up his own business as a graphic designer and, starting in the mid-1930s, began to further develop those avant-garde tendencies in the fields of photomontage and typography and to apply them in advertisements, book covers, brochures, and posters. These approaches had originated in the Soviet Union as well as in Germany, but were no longer tolerated there. Finally, as a co-founder and editor of the magazine «Neue Grafik» (1958 – 1965), he played a decisive role in establishing Swiss constructive graphic design, which gained relevance beyond national borders thanks to the consistent intertwining of industrial precision and objectivity, and is known to this day by the term «Swiss Style.».

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