"Avant Garde Graphics 1918-1934"
2005-07-30 until 2005-09-25
Kettle's Yard Gallery, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, , UK United Kingdom

The early twentieth century was a time of extraordinary change in Europe. The advance of the machine age brought mass production and distribution and a new sense of internationalism. The ‘heroic’ period of modernity – between the Russian Revolution and the arrival of Fascism in Germany – found particularly forceful expression in graphic design and photomontage. New techniques allowed a fusion of typography, painting and photography for artistic, commercial or political ends, evoking the dynamism and fragmentation of cinema.

This exhibition is a rare opportunity to see posters, prints, book designs and political and commercial ephemera, together with original layouts and photomontages, produced by some of the most important artists working at that time. Bringing together artists related to the Dutch De Stijl group, the German Bauhaus, and the Constructivists of Russia and Central Europe, it includes work by Jean Arp, Herbert Bayer, Willi Baumeister, Theo van Doesburg, Georg Grosz, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Gustav Klucis, El Lissitzky, Lászlò Moholy-Nagy, Liubov Popova, Alexandr Rodchenko, Oskar Schlemmer, Kurt Schwitters, Georgii Stenberg & Vladimir Stenberg, Soloman Telingater and Piet Zwart, among others.

This National Touring Exhibition is drawn from one of the greatest collections of twentieth century graphics, that of Merrill C. Berman, and is selected by the filmmaker and curator Lutz Becker. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, including texts by Lutz Becker and the design historian and designer Richard Hollis.

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