Herbert Matter (April 25, 1907 – May 8, 1984) was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...

in commercial art. Matter's innovative and experimental work helped shape the vocabulary of 20th-century graphic design.

Biography

Born in

Engelberg , neighboring_municipalities = Attinghausen (UR), Gadmen (BE), Innertkirchen (BE), Isenthal (UR), Wassen (UR), Wolfenschiessen (NW) , twintowns= Engelberg (lit.: ''mountain of angel(s)'') is a village resort and a municipality in the canton ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, Matter studied painting at the and at the Académie Moderne in Paris under the tutalge of

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

and

Amédée Ozenfant Amédée Ozenfant (15 April 1886 – 4 May 1966) was a French cubist painter and writer. Together with Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (later known as Le Corbusier) he founded the Purist movement. Education Ozenfant was born into a bourgeois f ...

. He worked with

Adolphe Mouron Cassandre Cassandre, pseudonym of Adolphe Jean-Marie MouronNotice d'autorité personne ...

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and

Deberny & Peignot Deberny & Peignot (Fonderie Deberny et Peignot) was a French type foundry, created by the 1923 merger of G. Peignot & Fils and Deberny & Cie. It was bought by the Haas Type Foundry (Switzerland) in 1972, which in turn was merged into D. Stempel A ...

. In 1932, he returned to Zurich, where he designed posters for the Swiss National Tourist Office and Swiss resorts. The travel posters won instant international acclaim for his pioneering use of

combined with

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

. He went to the United States in 1936 and was hired by legendary art director

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

. Work for ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

'', ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'' and other magazines followed. In the 1940s, photographers, including

Irving Penn Irving Penn (June 16, 1917October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at ''Vogue'' magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Is ...

, at ''Vogue''s studios at 480

Lexington Avenue Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street. Along it ...

often used them for shooting the advertising work commissioned by outside clients. The practice was at first tolerated, but by 1950 it was banned on the grounds that it "has interfered with our own interests and has been a severe handicap to our editorial operations". In response Matter and three other Condé Nast photographers Serge Balkin,

Constantin Joffé Constantin Joffé (1910–1992) was a Russian / French / American fashion and advertising photographer who worked for the magazines ''Vogue'' and '' Glamor'' in the decades of the 40s and 50s, during their period of widest circulation. Early life ...

and Geoffrey Baker left to establish Studio Enterprises Inc. in the former House & Garden studio on 37th Street (Penn stayed on but also left in 1952). From 1946 to 1966 Matter was design consultant with Knoll Associates. He worked closely with

Charles and Ray Eames Charles Eames ( Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames ( Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture through the work of ...

. From 1952 to 1976 he was professor of photography at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and from 1958 to 1968 he served as design consultant to the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He was elected to the New York Art Director's Club Hall of Fame in 1977, received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in photography in 1980 and the

AIGA The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity ...

medal in 1983. As a photographer, Matter won acclaim for his purely visual approach. A master technician, he used every method available to achieve his vision of light, form and texture. Manipulation of the negative, retouching, cropping, enlarging and light drawing are some of the techniques he used to achieve the fresh form he sought in his still lifes,

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

, nudes and

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

. As a filmmaker, he directed two films on his friend

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...

: "Sculptures and Constructions" in 1944 and "Works of Calder" (with music by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

) for the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in 1950. Close friends of Matter and his wife Mercedes were the painters

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

, fellow Swiss photographer

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...

and

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

. Matter's wife Mercedes was the daughter of the American modernist painter Arthur Beecher Carles, and was herself the chief founder of the

New York Studio School The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of ...

. "The absence of pomposity was characteristic of this guy", said another designer,

Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ...

, about Matter. His creative life was devoted to narrowing the gap between so-called

fine Fine may refer to: Characters * Sylvia Fine (''The Nanny''), Fran's mother on ''The Nanny'' * Officer Fine, a character in ''Tales from the Crypt'', played by Vincent Spano Legal terms * Fine (penalty), money to be paid as punishment for an offe ...

and

applied art The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univers ...

s. Matter died on May 8, 1984, in

Southampton, New York Southampton, officially the Town of Southampton, is a town in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the town had a population of 69,036. Southampton is included in the stret ...

Bibliography

* ''Herbert Matter: Modernist Photography and Graphic Design'' (paperback) by Jeffrey Head. Design and typsetting by John Hill. Exhibition catalog published by Stanford University Libraries 2005. * "History of Writing Non-Alphabetic Systems of Writing", ''Baseline International Typographics Magazine'', no. 41, 2003, pp. 33–36 by Jeffrey Head
"Herbert Matter: The Art of Photo-Graphics"
by Kerry William Purcell, '' Baseline'', No. 49, 2006
"The Crafty Linotyper" (extract)
by Kerry William Purcell. '' Eye'', No. 55, 2005 *
The Visual Language of Herbert Matter
' (2009), documentary film on the life and work of Matter

References

External links

*
Art Directors Club biography, portrait, and images of workHerbert Matter Photographs at the Stanford University Libraries
* * * , posted by the Calder Foundation
Yale Collection of Herbert Matter (MS 1630).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Matter, Herbert 1907 births 1984 deaths People from Obwalden 20th-century American photographers American graphic designers AIGA medalists Swiss emigrants to the United States Yale University faculty