Documentary on Legendary Designer Herbert Matter to Show at UC

A documentary about legendary Swiss designer Herbert Matter will have its Cincinnati premiere at

7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 3, 2011

, in Room 4400 (the large auditorium) in the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). The event is free and open to the public.

“The Visual Language of Herbert Matter” follows the multifaceted design career of Matter, who was – at various times – a collage artist, photographer, poster artist, typographer, filmmaker and, finally, instructor at Yale University.

Director Reto Caduff, also a native of Switzerland, will attend this local premiere in order to introduce the work. He will meet with event attendees during a

6:30-7:30 p.m. social hour

in DAAP’s 4000 lobby area adjacent to Room 4400. The evening is being organized by Oscar Fernandez, associate professor of design in UC’s

internationally ranked

School of Design. Co-sponsoring the event is the Cincinnati chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).

According to Caduff, Matter helped to shape the modernist era, initially by working in Paris in the 1920s alongside luminaries like architect and designer Le Corbusier and painter and poster artist A.M. Cassandre. Matter later moved to New York City where he became friends with abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and others. And still later, he moved to Los Angeles and worked with modernist designers Charles and Ray Eames.

Matter worked in numerous creative media: poster art, fashion photography, darkroom experiments, advertising, graphic design, film, drawing and painting. In previously published accounts, Carduff opined, “…it really leaves you in awe of his talent, passion and dedication.”

For more information on the documentary premiere, contact DAAP’s Oscar Fernandez at

oscar.fernandez@uc.edu