The Poster Art of Herbert Bayer
The Poster Art of Herbert Bayer
From the Collection of H. Kirk Brown and Jill A. Wiltse
July 2017-June 2018.
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The Poster Art of Herbert Bayer features a selection of posters by the artist from 1947 to 1981 showcasing his talents as a graphic designer and typographer. Herbert Bayer was born in Austria in 1900. He began his artistic career as a student at the Bauhaus, the famous German School of design, and later became a teacher there. Bayer spent his life as an innovator exposing the principles of the Bauhaus, the union of art and design, in a wide range of fields including painting, sculpture, typography, photography, advertising, environmental forms, and architecture. Before immigrating to the United States in 1938, Bayer spent time as the Art Director of Vogue magazine’s Berlin office. His contributions to the fields of graphic design, typography and advertising were many. Of particular note was his design for a typeface that consisted of entirely lowercase letters. In 1946, as an advertising consultant to Water Paepcke, who was one of the main supporters of development of Aspen, the Aspen Institute, and the owner of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Bayer moved to Aspen, Colorado where he spent much of his time designing architecture and posters for the local community. Bayer became the design consultant for the development of Aspen as a ski resort and cultural center, and architect for the Aspen Institute. In the mid-1970s Bayer relocated to Santa Barbara, California where he later died in 1985. Herbert Bayer’s legacy and strong artistic influence in Colorado continues to inspire regular exhibitions of his work. -Shana Shelby
Read more about the exhibition in The Aspen Times here.