The 8th Tehran International Poster Biennial, 15 February - 15 April 2004, Tehran, Iran.         Deadline: 31 October 2003.       Organized by Iranian Graphic Designers Society (IGDS).        Endorsed by Icograda.

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100+3 Swiss Posters, The Odermatt Collection
From 7th March to 19th April 2004
Tehran Gallery, The University of Tehran
Ghods Street, Enghelab Avenue Tehran-Iran
Telephone 98 (21) 611 2495
Open Saturday to Tuesday, 9 am to 5 pm
 
 
Self-taught graphic designer Siegfried Odermatt, one of the great old men in swiss posters,
started collecting them when he was only 16. Now, at age 72, his collection has reached about one hundred, and he felt the time had come to show them to the world in the form of a book and an exhibition, adding three of his own posters.
The work of 49 designers is presented, together with their photographic portraits, a detailed
biography and a sample of their signature (from letters, not from posters). The book is sprinkled with articles by his colleagues, Paul Bruehwiler for example, or Domenic Geissbuehler, Karl Gerstner and Wolfgang Weingart, to name a few.
Reading the book gave me a feeling that I was attending an imaginary insider meeting where Odermatt speaks to his colleagues, his teachers, his idols, or his partner Rosmarie Tissi, silently telling them what he admires and what influenced him, by leafing through their posters one by one.
The selection is therefore highly personal, and not necessarily representative of swiss poster design in the second half of the century. Typography plays a dominant role in almost all of the posters that are included, not surprising for anyone familiar with the work of the Studio Odermatt & Tissi. Indeed, Wolfgang Weingart recounts in his article that "Odermatt's world of signs and symbols made such an impact on me that my typographic consciousness underwent a complete transformation in 1960". Only a few of the younger generation, like Niklaus Troxler, Stephan Bundi or Roger Pfund found admission to the Odermatt collection.
 
A special treat are the dated photographic portraits that Odermatt painstakingly dug out.
While many of the poster illustrations can now be found in standard works or auction catalogues, portraits are less well known. Young Hans Falk at 26, wild longhaired Troxler, dreamy Hans Erni at 33, the book shows many of the designers at about the same time the posters in the book where created.
This small, handy volume has the same size and excellent make-up as the previous one from the Waser Verlag, on Odermatt & Tissi, and I wish it commercial success and am looking forward to a crowning third piece.
text from Rene Wanner's Poster Page

 
Siegfried Odermatt
born in Neuheim ZG on September 13, 1926.
Lives in Zurich.
A self-taught graphic designer, he worked for a short time with an industrial graphic designer and was a free-lance collaborator with the painter and graphic artist Hans Falk for several years. After working for an advertising consultant for three years, he became independent in 1950, and he has run a studio jointly with Rosmarie Tissi since 1968.
Member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) since 1974. Numerous distinctions, including one of the three 1st prizes at the "Colorado International Invitational Poster Competition" in 1987.
1992 1st prize at the competition for the Kiel International Sailing Week 1994. 1998 president of the jury at the 12th International Poster Biennial in Warsaw. 1993 member of the jury at the competition for posters and visual images at the Kiel meeting in 1995. Exhibitions, with Rosmarie Tissi:
1984 in the Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main; 1992 in the Reinhold-Brown Poster Gallery in New York; 193 in the Zurich Town Hall on the occasion of the book vernissage "Odermatt & Tissi-Graphic Design"; 1996/97 at the German Poster Museum in Essen; 1998 GGG Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo. His posters are included in numerous private collections, galleries and museums in Europe, the USA and Asia.
 

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