Stylogenyin the style of Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)

Pictorial & machine age · 1919–1955 · Central Europe

Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)

Also known as Swiss Sachplakat, Basler Sachplakat, Basel School object poster, Swiss object poster

The Swiss descendant of the German object poster, made in Zurich and above all Basel from 1919 to the early 1950s. One everyday product (a top hat, a tweed coat, a toothpaste tube, a fountain-pen nib, a match, a curl of butter) is painted larger than life with modelled light, cast shadows and tactile surfaces, set on a plain dark, pale or softly graded ground, with little more than the brand name as text. Rooted in the Neue Sachlichkeit, it raises the product to a quiet, uncanny icon; from about 1940 Leupin and Brun added humour and visual puns.

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A large wedge of golden cheese with a dark brown rind marked “ALPINA” and a mountain motif casts a shadow on a cream background. Below it, blue script reads “Pur et vrai” above large red “ALPINA” lettering.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Show one product, or two crossed, larger than life and close enough to touch, isolated on a plain black, pale or softly graded ground.
  • Render the object illusionistically: modelled light, a soft cast shadow, highlights on glass and enamel, and the true texture of tweed, wood, metal or butter.
  • Let the object carry the brand: paint the name onto the label, tube or tablet, and keep any other text to a short slogan and the brand name, often a light italic line above a heavy drawn name.
  • Lay the object on a diagonal or cross two objects in an X so a static still life gains movement.
  • Make a visual pun from real things when wit is wanted: let two real objects together form a sign or a second meaning (Leupin's rolled newspaper above a globe as an exclamation mark, c. 1950; his quill crossed by a telephone receiver, 1941).

Basel and Zurich, Switzerland. In Zurich, Otto Baumberger's lithographed Baumann top hat (designed 1919) and PKZ coat (1923) set the model; in Basel, Niklaus Stoecklin (1896-1982), the leading Swiss painter of the Neue Sachlichkeit and Magic Realism, and his apprentice Peter Birkhäuser (1911-1976), followed by Herbert Leupin (1916-1999; Basel Kunstgewerbeschule, then the École Paul Colin in Paris, 1935-36) and Donald Brun (1909-1999). Colour lithographs for Swiss brands, shops and newspapers, printed by Basel and Zurich firms such as Wassermann and Wolfsberg.

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Straight photography, Photomontage, Collage & layering, Modular grid, Horror vacui, Abundant decoration, Borders & frames, Experimental & distorted, Non-representational, Flat

Palette

  • #121212
  • #f1ece0
  • #2f56a6
  • #e0472b
  • #f0c419
  • #8a6a45

Typefaces

  • Brand name painted on the product

    the woven MARQUE PKZ label, 1923; BINACA on the tube and METAMETA embossed on the fuel tablet, 1941

  • Light italic slogan over a heavy name

    Birkhäuser's 'Wer rechnet, kauft im' above a bold Globus, 1942; Brun's lowercase 'gesund und gut mit' above Butter, 1951; on one line in Leupin's '...trink lieber' beside a heavy brush Eptinger, 1948; the italic alone in his lowercase telephonieren, 1941

  • Flowing pen script

    Birkhäuser's Feba, written by the nib, 1941; Anti-solaire on Stoecklin's Bi-Oro, 1941

  • Heavy drawn slab serif

    Stoecklin's GABA, 1927; Brun's condensed, mixed-case Butter, 1951

  • Shadowed roman capitals

    Stoecklin's MARKEN MÜLLER, 1948

  • Bold drawn grotesque

    Birkhäuser's inlined Globus, 1942; the address on Baumberger's Baumann

Known for

  • Otto Baumberger, Baumann

    (designed 1919; lithograph, Mentor Verlag, Zurich; MoMA 462.1987, a later printing with the Fraumünsterstr. 17 address, which MoMA dates 1922 and Galerie 123 dates 1928): a silky black top hat, fully modelled and tilted on white, overlapping the red roman name Baumann, with the address in bold grotesque capitals

  • Otto Baumberger, Marque PKZ (1923; lithograph printed by Wolfsberg, Zurich; MoMA 670.1980)

    the collar of a herringbone coat cropped close, its PKZ label the only text

  • Niklaus Stoecklin, Gaba gegen Husten! (1927; lithograph, Wassermann, Basel; MoMA 427.1994)

    a flat blue head in profile swallowing a black lozenge above a slab-serif GABA on white, from the flat silhouette phase before Stoecklin turned to photographic precision around 1931

  • Niklaus Stoecklin, Bi-Oro sunscreen (1941; lithograph; MoMA 314.1999)

    sunglasses crossed over a tube on black

  • Niklaus Stoecklin, Binaca toothpaste (1941; lithograph; MoMA 313.1999)

    tube and translucent toothbrush in a glass on black

  • Niklaus Stoecklin, Meta Meta (1941; lithograph; MoMA 315.1999)

    a match crossed over an embossed fuel tablet on blue

  • Peter Birkhäuser, Feba Tinte (1941; lithograph; MoMA 409.1994)

    a steel nib writing the brand name in red script

  • Herbert Leupin, Telephonieren (1941; lithograph, Wassermann, Basel; MoMA 632.1981)

    a white quill crossed by a black telephone receiver on yellow, the single word in lowercase italic

03

Make something in this style

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04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleBasel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)1919–1955 · Central Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. Swiss National Library, 'The Object Poster 1920-1950', https://www.nb.admin.ch/en/the-object-poster-1920-1950 (Basel School object posters with one oversized, simplified but realistic subject and often only the brand name; New Objectivity; Morach's PKZ c. 1928; Leupin's Pelikan, 1952; lithography displaced by offset)
  2. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Stoecklin (leading Swiss representative of the Neue Sachlichkeit and Magischer Realismus; only Swiss artist in Hartlaub's 1925 Mannheim exhibition; Gaba 1927 and PKZ 1934 as icons of international poster art; Sachplakate of the 1920s-1940s)
  3. Thomas Freivogel, 'Stoecklin, Niklaus', Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/027872/2012-05-29/
  4. Gail Davidson, 'A rare modernist poster', Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 20 October 2013, https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2013/10/20/a-rare-modernist-poster/ (by 1931 Stoecklin abandoned flat abstraction for hand-drawn, full-colour, photographically accurate depictions of industrial products)
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Baumberger (Marque PKZ, 1923, for Burger-Kehl & Co.: collar and jacket with herringbone fabric and label; a Sachplakat centred on a single object; trained as a lithographer)
  6. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Birkh%C3%A4user (Kunstgewerbeschule Basel 1928-1934, then apprenticed with Niklaus Stoecklin; early work labelled Magischer Realismus)
  7. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Leupin (Kunstgewerbeschule Basel 1931-1935; École Paul Colin, Paris, 1935-1936)
  8. Charles Leupin, 'Leupin, Herbert', Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/027867/ (Basler Kunstgewerbeschule 1931-34; École Paul Colin, Paris, 1935-36; briefly in Donald Brun's studio, 1937)
  9. Galerie Hilt, 'Herbert Leupin (1916-1999): Malerei, Zeichnungen, Grafik, Plakate', exhibition documentation, Basel, 2013, https://galeriehilt.ch/media/files/herbert-leupin-ausstellungsdokumentation-2013-galerie-hilt-basel-01.pdf (a year in Paris at Paul Colin's private academy on a stipend; strong artistic impressions from Paul Colin and from his strongest rival, Cassandre)
  10. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Brun (1909-1999; apprenticed as a Reklamezeichner with Ernst Keiser, who taught calligraphy in the graphics class of the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel, 1927-1930; subtle humour)
  11. Galerie 123, 'Baumann Fraumünsterstr. 17' (Otto Baumberger, created 1919; this copy the 1928 printing for the move to Fraumünsterstrasse 17, Mentor Verlag, Zurich, stone lithograph), https://www.galerie123.com/en/original-vintage-poster/35946/baumann-fraumunsterstr-17
  12. Museum of Modern Art, Architecture and Design collection records (titles, dates, media; printers read from the imprints on the collection images, e.g. 'Wolfsberg' Zürich on Marque PKZ, Mentor Verlag Zürich on Baumann and Wassermann A.G. Basel on Gaba, Globus and Telephonieren): Baumberger 462.1987, 670.1980; Stoecklin 427.1994, 313.1999, 314.1999, 315.1999, 426.1994; Birkhäuser 408.1994, 409.1994; Leupin 632.1981, 491.1951, 492.1951; Brun 249.1994; MoMA collection dataset, https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/collection

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