BOOK REVIEW

The german city of Cologne has a long-standing interest in the so-called "artist poster", having hosted an exhibition with this theme in 1905 already. The Museum for Applied Art continued this tradition by showing, in 1996, a selection of about 200 posters for art exhibitions from its rich collection of 40'000, covering mainly german galleries

Very often, art exhibition posters are mere reproductions of some of the exhibits, with typography added by the printer, but fortunately none of the posters in the book fall into this category. Instead, we can observe how painters and poster designers interprete their own work, or those of other artists. It was a apparently a challenge even for Picasso, as we can see in an example.

Mavignier Exhibition at Galerie Denise Rene - Hans Mayer, Duesseldorf (D) 1973, Almir Mavignier

L'art pour l'art Posters for cultural institutions by Pierre Mendel and Buero Mendell & Oberer, exhibition at the Muenchner Stadtmuseum, Munich (D) 1994, Pierre Mendell

Donazione Panza di Biumo Art exhibition at Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano (CH) Center part of a triptych 1995, Bruno Monguzzi

The book contains much more than the posters. After a well researched and well documented introduction to the subject, there is a series of interviews with a graphic designer (Uwe Loesch), a painter/poster designer (Almir Mavignier), the late Dr. Lempert, who was the leading specialist and dealer in artist posters, a collector, an art exhibition manager and a typography teacher, all of them top dogs in their domain. I wish more museums would see their role as offering a common platform for all the diverse circles that are interested in art - and in posters.

I like this little, handy book for its wealth of information in text and pictures, and its clear presentation.