Herbert Matter
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Herbert Matter (1907-1984) was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of photomontage in commercial art. The designer's innovative and experimental work helped shape the vocabulary of 20th-century graphic design.
Herbert Matter studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva and at the Académie Moderne in Paris with Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. He worked with Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, Le Corbusier and Deberney & Peignot. 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 photomontage combined with type. He came to the United States in 1936 and was hired by legendary art director Alexey Brodovich. Work for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and other magazines followed. From 1946 to 1966 he was design consultant with Knoll Associates. He worked closely with Charles and Ray Eames. From 1952 to 1976 he was professor of photography at Yale University and from 1958 to 1968 he served as design consultant to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 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 in photography in 1980 and the AIGA 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, enignatic form he sought in his still lifes, landscapes, nudes and portraits. As a filmmaker he directed a film on his friend Alexander Calder (with music by John Cage) for the Museum of Modern Art in 1952.
Close friends of Herbert Matter and his wife Mercedes were the painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, fellow Swiss photographer Robert Frank and Alberto Giacometti.
"The absence of pomposity was characteristic of this guy," said another designer, Paul Rand, about Matter. While his creative life was devoted to narrowing the gap between so-called fine and applied arts, the deed is often best stated through works rather than through speech. Herbert Matter died on May 8 1984 in Southampton, New York.
A documentary on the life and work of Herbert Matter is scheduled for release in 2009.
