Erik Nitsche

General Dynamics, Exhibition at the Rockefeller Plaza – Original Vintage Poster

1961

Original Swiss Vintage Travel Poster promoting the TEE service linking Zurich and Milano (operated 1961 to 1988) by Kurt Wirth, a notable Swiss graphic designer and co-founder of the Swiss Graphic Designers Association. A great modernist design evoking speed and reliability. The international first-class railway service of Trans Europ Express...

Original Vintage Poster, issued 1980 on the occasion of the exhibition in Lugano named after Le Corbusier's famous dictum "creation is a patient sea...

Original Vintage Poster, issued 1987 by the ETH in Zurich on the occasion of its exhibition on Le Corbusier's famous – and revolutionary – Villa Savoye, c...

Original Swiss Travel Poster promoting St. Moritz as winter destination, featuring Germaine Aussey, then a famous French actress. Created by Walter Herdeg who – together with Herber...

A poster belonging to Erik Nitsche's second series for General Dynamics, promoting its nuclear research. Founded 1952, General Dynamics hired Nitsche as Art Director – a Swiss (1908 – 1998) educated at the Collège Classique in his birth town Lausanne and at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. 1934 he emigrated to the United States and became an incredibly versatile graphic designer whose work became exemplary modernist. General Dynamics for its part focused on – amongst others – aerodynamics, aerospace, electronics and nuclear power. So here the company had a problem: Only a few years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki it wasn’t exactly the simplest thing to explore nuclear energy and not to be suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction. The International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy 1955 in Geneva was a great opportunity to be seen as a provider of peaceful technology. The guys in charge chose Erik Nitsche to communicate this message. He created four poster series. Atoms for Peace was the first consisting of eleven posters. The second was made for the Conference 1958; these posters are titled Exploring the Universe and represent different aspects of technological research. The third series promoted General Dynamics’ departments. The last series of six smaller posters...

Original Vintage Airline Poster commissioned by the British Overseas Airways Corporation promoting its service to the British Territory in the Atlantic ...

An original woodblock print dated 1965, titled "Our Town" but signed illegibly.

Etching on antique laid paper, 6 9/16 x 3 15/16 inches (167 x 100 mm), signed and dated in pencil, lower margin. Potentially a trial proof impression aside from the unsigned edition of 1459. Non-archival tape residue along the top and bottom sheet edges, recto, well outside of image area. Scattered handling creases and general scattered soiling in the margins, minor and unobtrusive. [Fletcher 217]. This work was commissioned by The Architectural Forum...

Ecthing in black ink on cream laid paper with a partial watermark, full margins. In excellent condition. A very scarce work from an edition of less than 20 impressions. Signed, date...

Etching on F.J. Head & Co. watermarked cream laid paper, 8 1/8 x 7 5/8 (205 x 184 mm), full margins. Signed and dated in pencil, lower margin. Illustrated in Dorothy Noyes Arms, Chur...

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, full margins. Signed in pencil, lower right margin. In generally good conditon with several scattered very light spots of foxing throughout,...

Etching on thin, bluish-green cream laid paper, 9 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches (233 x 120 mm), full margins. Signed and dated in pencil, lower margin. First and only state. Printed by Frederi...