Walter Cyliax

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Photo poster by Walter Cyliax (1929)

Walter Cyliax (* 25. October 1899 in Leipzig , † 1945 in Vienna ) was an active in Switzerland commercial artist .

Life

After training as a typesetter and studying at the State Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Industry in Leipzig, Walter Cyliax worked for the Fretz brothers' book printing company in Zurich from 1924, and from 1930 as artistic director and authorized signatory .

Influenced by the Russian exhibition shown in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich in spring 1929 , for which El Lissitzky had designed a pioneering poster, Cyliax was one of the first designers to use photography in posters. His poster for the exhibition Abstract and Surrealist Painting and Sculpture by Hans Arp is also considered the first with a non-figurative composition in Switzerland.

Contacts existed with the “ring neue werbegestalter” founded by Kurt Schwitters at the end of 1927, in which Cyliax's former teacher Jan Tschichold played a leading role. Cyliax was presented in 1930 in the book Gefesselter Blick , one of the most important publications on the position of commercial graphics in the late 1920s and a who's who of new typography . In 1933 Walter Cyliax became editor-in-chief of the newly founded Typografische Monatsblätter . He held this position until 1937.

Cyliax then moved to Vienna, where he took over the traditional Viennese printing company Rosenbaum in the summer of 1938 as the Aryanization of Jewish companies began. Thanks to good relations with the party offices of the NSDAP , the Reich German ariseur managed to get good orders. As a result, Cyliax turned away from photography and the new typography and to the traditional art of printing.

Walter Cyliax was killed in an air raid in 1945.

literature

  • Hermann Karl Frenzel: The graphic artist Cyliax and Gebr. Fretz A.-G., Zurich . In: Usage graphics . tape 7 , no. 5 , 1930, p. 216–221 ( arthistoricum.net [accessed July 22, 2020]).
  • Bodo Rasch / Heinz Rasch : Cyliax . In: Gefesselter Blick: 25 short monographs and articles on new advertising design . Scientific publisher Dr. Zaugg, Stuttgart 1930, p. 38-40 .
  • S. Schü .: Cyliax, Walter . In: General Artist Lexicon . tape 23 . KG Saur Verlag , Munich 1999, p. 267 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Poster "USSR - Russian Exhibition - Museum of Decorative Arts Zurich" (1929) , Wikimedia Commons .
  2. ↑ Kerry Willam Purcell: Swiss photo graphics . In: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (Ed.): 100 years of Swiss graphics . Lars Müller Publishers , Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-03778-352-8 , pp. 98-111, 101 .
  3. ^ Poster "Kunsthaus Zürich - abstract and surrealist painting and sculpture" (1929) in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art .
  4. ^ Louise Paradis / Roland Früh / François Rappo (eds.): 30 Years of Swiss Typographic Discourse in the Typographische Monatsblätter . Lars Müller Publishers, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-03778-538-6 , pp. 47 .
  5. ↑ Anton Durstmüller: 500 years pressure in Austria: The Austrian graphic arts from 1918 to 1982 . tape 3 . Main Association of Austrian Graphic Companies , Vienna 1988, ISBN 978-3-85104-500-0 , p. 193 .
personal data
SURNAME Cyliax, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss typographer and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH 1945
Place of death Vienna