Herbert Matter Art

American, Swiss, 1907-1984

Herbert Matter was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer. He was born in Engelberg, on April 25, 1907. Matter studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva and the Académie Moderne in Paris with Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. He worked with Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, Le Corbusier and Deberny & Peignot. In 1932, he returned to Zürich, 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 the typeface. He went to the United States in 1936 and was hired by legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch. He soon started working for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and other magazines. In the 1940s, photographers, including Irving Penn, used Vogue’s studios at 480 Lexington Avenue for shooting the advertising work commissioned by outside clients. The practice was at first tolerated but by 1950 it was banned because it interfered with Vogue’s interests and was a severe handicap to their editorial operations. In response to this, Matter and three other Condé Nast photographers, Serge Balkin, Constantin Joffé and Geoffrey Baker left to establish Studio Enterprises Inc. in the former House & Garden studio on 37th Street. From 1946–66, Matter was a design consultant with Knoll Associates and worked closely with Charles and Ray Eames. From 1952–76, he was a professor of photography at Yale University and from 1958–68 he served as design consultant to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He was elected to the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1977, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography in 1980 and the American Institute of Graphic Arts 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, nudes and portraits. As a filmmaker, he directed two films on his friend Alexander Calder, namely Sculptures and Constructions in 1944 and Works of Calder with music by John Cage for the Museum of Modern Art in 1950. Close friends of Matter and his wife Mercedes were the painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, fellow Swiss photographer Robert Frank and Alberto Giacometti. 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 absence of pomposity was characteristic of this guy”, said another designer, Paul Rand, about Matter. His creative life was devoted to narrowing the gap between the so-called fine and applied arts. Matter died on May 8, 1984, in Southampton, New York.

Artist: Herbert Matter

Herbert Matter1974 original poster for the retrospective exhibition of Alberto Giacometti, 1974

$1,765

1974 original poster for the retrospective exhibition of Alberto Giacometti

By Herbert Matter

Located in PARIS, FR

The 1974 original poster for the retrospective exhibition of Alberto Giacometti at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is a remarkable piece that blends fine art and masterf...

Category

1970s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Linen, Paper, Lithograph

Herbert MatterGirl Covered with Jewelry, circa 1940

Price Upon Request

Girl Covered with Jewelry, circa 1940

By Herbert Matter

Located in New York, NY

Unsigned

Category

1940s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Lora Webb NicholsTed Higby at Skyline Rodeo, 1928, 1928

$2,000

H 22.5 in W 17.5 in D 2 in

Ted Higby at Skyline Rodeo, 1928

Located in New York, NY

Listing includes framing with UV plexiglas, free shipping and a 14 day return policy. Ted Higby at Skyline Rodeo, 1928 15 x 12 inch gelatin silver print Image Size: 14 x 8.5 inches Frame size: 22.5 x 17.5 x 2 inches Edition of 15 Lora Webb Nichols was born in 1883 and grew up in the small mining town of Encampment, Wyoming. At the age of 16 Lora received her first camera and from that moment and for the next few decades she produced work that is both stunning in its singular voice and revealing in the world it opens up for us. At first Nichols photographed her family, friends, and the landscape around Encampment, but when the town experienced a copper mining boom Nichols expanded her scope to become a photographer for hire shooting portraits and industrial photographs. When the boom collapsed, Nichols took the risk of opening her own business in Encampment - The Rocky Mountain Studio - which opened in 1925. The studio ran for ten years, accumulating 24,000 negatives that illustrate the lives and environment of the people living in and around the town while creating a distinctive and surprising body of work. If one was to attempt an analogy – Nichols’ pictures fit somewhere between Lartigue and Lange - joyful and generous while objectively intimate. In particular what seems to distinguish Nichols’ work is the way she sees the world from a female perspective. As Vince Aletti...

Category

1920s Other Art Style Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Julian WasserEve Babitz and Marcel Duchamp playing chess during Duchamp's Pasadena Art Museum, 1963

$5,000

H 11 in W 14 in

Eve Babitz and Marcel Duchamp playing chess during Duchamp's Pasadena Art Museum

By Julian Wasser

Located in New York, NY

Listing is for an unframed print and includes free shipping to the continental US and 14-day return policy. Julian Wasser Eve Babitz and Marcel Duchamp pl...

Category

1960s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

Julian WasserJoan and Quintana Roo (Frame 27a.), 1968

$6,500

H 20 in W 16 in

Joan and Quintana Roo (Frame 27a.)

By Julian Wasser

Located in New York, NY

Listing includes free shipping for unframed prints and a 14 day return policy. Joan Didion by Julian Wasser 20 x 16 inch gelatin silver print Edition 3 of 15 Signed on verso by Julian Wasser *Please inquire for international shipments. Quotes will be provided at cost via FedEx. Description - Julian Wasser started his career in photography in the Washington DC bureau of the Associated Press where he met and accompanied the famous news photographer Weegee – who would become a lasting influence on him. In the mid-60s Wasser moved to Los Angeles as a contract photographer for TIME, LIFE, and FORTUNE magazines and becoming internationally known as the go to guy for getting candid but memorably composed photographs. (His iconic images of Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston; Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz; and a young Jodie Foster are already classics.) In 1968 TIME Magazine assigned Wasser to go to the home of the young writer Joan Didion whose book Slouching Towards Bethlehem was becoming a literary sensation. “I’d read her fiction,” said Wasser. “and she didn’t miss a thing. She was such a heavyweight person.” Wasser shot Didion at her rented house on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, where she lived with her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and their daughter, Quintana Roo. “It was a nice, cozy house,” Wasser remembers. “And she was a very easy person to talk to...

Category

1960s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

Seydou KeïtaUntitled Portrait, 1952-1955

$8,500

H 23.5 in W 19.5 in

Untitled Portrait

By Seydou Keïta

Located in New York, NY

Listing includes framing with UV Plexi ($900 value), free shipping, and a 14-day return policy. Seydou Keïta Untitled Portrait, 1952 - 1955 (02158) 23...

Category

1950s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Photographic Film, Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

Herbert MatterBy Swissair to Amsterdam & Rotterdam – Original Swiss Vintage Airline Poster, 1935

Sold

H 39.97 in W 24.81 in D 0.04 in

By Swissair to Amsterdam & Rotterdam – Original Swiss Vintage Airline Poster

By Herbert Matter

Located in Zurich, CH

Original Vintage Travel Poster by the prolific Swiss designer and photographer Herbert Matter that pioneered the art of photomontage in Switzerland due to his constant and ingenious ...

Category

1930s Herbert Matter Art

Materials

Paper

Herbert Matter art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Herbert Matter art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Herbert Matter in lithograph and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1920s and is mostly associated with the Art Deco style. Not every interior allows for large Herbert Matter art, so small editions measuring 36 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Roger Broders, Emil Cardinaux, and Georges Lepape. Herbert Matter art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $9,500 and tops out at $9,500, while the average work can sell for $9,500.