Nr. 5 Typographie als Malerei Poster

Wolfgang WeingartWW-1974-138299

1974·Offset lithograph on newsprint·88 × 62 cm (34 9/16 × 24 1/4 in.)

<p>Known for his experimental use of typography to create engaging graphic layouts, Wolfgang Weingart has influenced a generation of designers. This collaboration with Chicago-based Philip Burton, one of Weingart’s students, is based on documentation from Weingart’s class at the Basel School of Design and is meant to represent a train journey across the Alps. Weingart’s interest in employing letterforms as both a textual and visual form of communication is evident in the poster’s typographic compositions, such as the staggered city names, which are indicative of the formal nature of mountains, rain, and the sun.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1974
Medium: Offset lithograph on newsprint
Dimensions: 88 × 62 cm (34 9/16 × 24 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Wolfgang Weingart

Artist

Wolfgang Weingart

Printmaking

Wolfgang Weingart was a Swiss typographer and graphic designer who fundamentally transformed postwar design through experimental layering of typography, photography, and geometric form. Working primarily in Basel from the 1960s onward, he developed a distinctive approach that rejected the Swiss International Style's rigid orthodoxy in favor of kinetic, densely composed layouts that treated letterforms and images as equally weighted visual elements. His teaching at the Basel School of Design shaped generations of designers across Europe and North America. Weingart's radical use of overprinting, scale shifts, and diagonal compositions established a visual language that bridged modernism and postmodern sensibility.

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