Pierre Mendell
Pierre Mendell (born November 17, 1929 in Essen as Wolfgang Mendell ; † December 19, 2008 in Munich ) was a graphic designer who shaped the appearance of public cultural institutions through his posters for around 40 years .
life and work
Mendell and his family emigrated to the Netherlands in 1934 and on to Paris in 1939 , where he changed his first name to Pierre due to pronunciation problems. In 1940 they fled to Marseille in the hope of being able to travel to the United States from there . However, they did not get a visa. Only after the liberation of France by Allied troops were mother and son able to get to the United States, where Mendell acquired American citizenship in 1947. In 1953 he returned to Germany as a soldier in the US Army in the role of interpreter. After his release, he worked in a relative's textile company in Alsace, for which his father also worked. From 1958 he studied at the arts and crafts school in Basel , among others with Armin Hofmann . After an internship in Munich with Michael Engelmann , he broke off his studies in coordination with Hofmann and worked for Engelmann. 1961 founded the studio Mendell & Oberer together with his former colleague at Engelmann, Klaus Oberer , since 2000 Pierre Mendell Design Studio . In addition to commercial companies, their customers always included cultural institutions, especially museums.
From 1980 Mendell was the house designer of the Neue Sammlung - State Museum for Applied Arts , Munich. When the Neue Sammlung moved to the Pinakothek der Moderne in 2002, he designed the entire visual appearance of the collection. From 1993 to 2006 he designed the posters for the Bavarian State Opera . In 2003 he created a poster series with a common design for all state museums in Munich and some participating museums from other sponsors such as the Deutsches Museum .
In 1987 and 2006, the Neue Sammlung dedicated individual exhibitions of his work to its designer for their own home and other institutions. Under the title “L'art pour l'art”, the Munich City Museum organized an exhibition of Mendell's posters in 1996, which was then shown by the Goethe Institute in cultural institutions around the world. The contacts he made resulted in solo exhibitions in Osaka , Japan, 2004 and São Paulo , Brazil 2007. The latter was also shown in Brasília and Rio de Janeiro in 2008 and in Salvador da Bahia in 2009.
Awards (selection)
- Multiple gold and silver medals from Art Directors Clubs in Germany, Switzerland and New York between 1971 and 1989
- 1993 Design Prize from the City of Munich
- In 1995 Mendell's posters were added to the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art , New York
Publications
- Pierre Mendell: At first glance - graphic design for everyday life . Müller Verlag, Baden, Switzerland, 2001, ISBN 3-907078-64-0
- Franco Clivio, Hans Hansen, Pierre Mendell: Hidden Forms - Hidden Forms . Zurich University of the Arts, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7643-8967-3
Web links
- Obituary, biography and examples of Mendell's work ( Memento from May 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Neue Sammlung , State Museum of Applied Arts, Munich
- Detailed biography of Pierre Mendell by Wolfgang Beinert in Typolexikon , the lexicon of Western European typography
- Pierre Mendell: At first sight. Graphic design for everyday life. A studio talk on May 16, 2002 with Pierre Mendell in Munich.
Individual evidence
- ↑ This chapter is largely based on: Wolfgang Beinert: Pierre Mendell auf Typolexikon.de - The Lexicon of Western European Typography , accessed on February 9, 2008
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mendell, Pierre |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mendell, Wolfgang (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American graphic designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 17, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | eat |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 19, 2008 |
| Place of death | Munich |