Neatly wrapped package over text; pink, black, blue
Peter Birkhauser, Alles aus der Rheinbrucke Basel (Everything from Rheinbrucke Dept. Store), 1942
Technicolor Campbell's Tomato Soup can on paper bag; orange, pink, blue
Andy Warhol, Campbell's Tomato Soup (paper bag), 1966
Wool coat with Pkz label; brown, green, yellow, grey
Otto Baumberger, PKZ (Coat), 1923

Proto-Pop: The Elegant Object

 

We proudly present Proto-Pop: The Elegant Object, a first-of-its-kind exhibition of original vintage Object Posters from the Twenties to the 1940s, offered as precursors to the controversial and explosive Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  The exhibition, featuring over 30 posters from Object Poster masters, explores the points where the two movements converge, as well as contrast. 

 

Featuring hyper-realistic drawings of everyday things, the Swiss Object Poster beginning in the Twenties focused on the beauty and precision of mundane industrial era products such as toothpaste, sunglasses, sneakers and household cleaners.  These startling, larger-than-life advertisements foreshadowed by decades Pop Art's similar fascination with basic consumer products.  Both styles elevate the commonplace object to a level of symbolism that elicits both shock and contemplation from the viewer.  Though they display similar iconography, the Object Poster exalts the almost magical beauty of the object, while Pop Art uses the consumer object as an ironic symbol of rebellion.

 

Highlighting the show is a poster by Peter Birkhauser for the department store Rheinbrücke.  Birkhauser, like his mentor Niklaus Stoecklin, excelled at creating unforgettable icons out of everyday objects.  The artist created more than 50 Object Poster masterpieces during the Thirties, Forties and early Fifties and this elegant poster is an excellent illustration of his skill.  The crisp folds of the wrapping paper, the trompe l'oeil affect of the green string and the whimsical flip of the handle evoke an ideal of luxurious presentation, leaving the contents of the package to the imagination of the consumer.  Pop prince Andy Warhol captured a similar aesthetic in his famous "Brillo Boxes" sculpture, relying on the object to tell a powerful, if altogether contrasting story.  Both artists recognized the natural draw of the Object, and their works speak volumes on the pervasive consumer culture of their respective times.

 

Also featured is a poster by design titan Herbert Leupin for Steinfels soap.  Leupin created approximately 500 posters over a 30-year period, beginning his career in the Thirties as an Object Poster specialist and then modifying his style after the war.  His injection of marketing imagination and gentle humor propelled the style to the forefront of Swiss poster art.  The inclusion of a trompe l'oeil water droplet in a poster for a laundry soap adds a playful touch to an eerily super-real still life of a giant wooden clothespin and soap bar.  Such a poster, featuring prodigious draughtsmanship and painstaking lithographic skill, took roughly 10 to 12 weeks to produce.  It is interesting to compare Leupin's work to Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg's monumental Clothespin of 1976. The public art installation, located on Market Street in Philadelphia, is a popular example of Pop Art's subversive idolization of the object as a symbol of an overly consumerist society.

 

The exhibition will include Otto Baumberger seminal PKZ coat poster of 1923, and Alex Diggelman's PKZ Box, neither of which utilize any superfluous text. There will also be important works from Niklaus Stoecklin, an Object Poster pioneer in Basel, as well as examples of Object Posters from other countries. Also included is a vintage shopping bag, screenprinted with the most recognizable icon of the Pop Art era, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup can.

 

View all of our Object Posters here!

Violin head; pink, brown, black, red
Peter Birkhauser, Radio Paillard, 1945
A white sneaker and a blue sneaker on green background; blue, green, white
Herbert Leupin, Bata 3.90, 1949

Proto-Pop: The Elegant Object

 

We proudly present Proto-Pop: The Elegant Object, a first-of-its-kind exhibition of original vintage Object Posters from the Twenties to the 1940s, offered as precursors to the controversial and explosive Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  The exhibition, featuring over 30 posters from Object Poster masters, explores the points where the two movements converge, as well as contrast. 

 

Featuring hyper-realistic drawings of everyday things, the Swiss Object Poster beginning in the Twenties focused on the beauty and precision of mundane industrial era products such as toothpaste, sunglasses, sneakers and household cleaners.  These startling, larger-than-life advertisements foreshadowed by decades Pop Art's similar fascination with basic consumer products.  Both styles elevate the commonplace object to a level of symbolism that elicits both shock and contemplation from the viewer.  Though they display similar iconography, the Object Poster exalts the almost magical beauty of the object, while Pop Art uses the consumer object as an ironic symbol of rebellion.

 

Highlighting the show is a poster by Peter Birkhauser for the department store Rheinbrücke.  Birkhauser, like his mentor Niklaus Stoecklin, excelled at creating unforgettable icons out of everyday objects.  The artist created more than 50 Object Poster masterpieces during the Thirties, Forties and early Fifties and this elegant poster is an excellent illustration of his skill.  The crisp folds of the wrapping paper, the trompe l'oeil affect of the green string and the whimsical flip of the handle evoke an ideal of luxurious presentation, leaving the contents of the package to the imagination of the consumer.  Pop prince Andy Warhol captured a similar aesthetic in his famous "Brillo Boxes" sculpture, relying on the object to tell a powerful, if altogether contrasting story.  Both artists recognized the natural draw of the Object, and their works speak volumes on the pervasive consumer culture of their respective times.

 

Also featured is a poster by design titan Herbert Leupin for Steinfels soap.  Leupin created approximately 500 posters over a 30-year period, beginning his career in the Thirties as an Object Poster specialist and then modifying his style after the war.  His injection of marketing imagination and gentle humor propelled the style to the forefront of Swiss poster art.  The inclusion of a trompe l'oeil water droplet in a poster for a laundry soap adds a playful touch to an eerily super-real still life of a giant wooden clothespin and soap bar.  Such a poster, featuring prodigious draughtsmanship and painstaking lithographic skill, took roughly 10 to 12 weeks to produce.  It is interesting to compare Leupin's work to Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg's monumental Clothespin of 1976. The public art installation, located on Market Street in Philadelphia, is a popular example of Pop Art's subversive idolization of the object as a symbol of an overly consumerist society.

 

The exhibition will include Otto Baumberger seminal PKZ coat poster of 1923, and Alex Diggelman's PKZ Box, neither of which utilize any superfluous text. There will also be important works from Niklaus Stoecklin, an Object Poster pioneer in Basel, as well as examples of Object Posters from other countries. Also included is a vintage shopping bag, screenprinted with the most recognizable icon of the Pop Art era, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup can.

 

View all of our Object Posters here!