Born in Zürich in 1902, Richard Paul Lohse had a dream of becoming a painter. However, due to difficult economic circumstances, his wish to study in Paris was not fulfilled. Instead, in 1918 he joined the advertising agency Max Dalang and trained to become an advertising artist. Despite being self-taught, Lohse’s work displayed expressiveness and late cubist elements, especially in his still life paintings.
In the 1930s, his career as a graphic artist and book designer earned him recognition as one of the pioneers of modern Swiss graphic design. In his paintings, he experimented with curved and diagonal constructions. In 1937, Lohse and Leo Leuppi founded Allianz, an association for Swiss modern artists. The following year, he assisted with the organization of the “Twentieth Century German Art” exhibition in London, alongside his brief wife, Irmgard Burchard.
Lohse’s strong political beliefs led him to join the resistance movement, where he met and eventually married Ida Alis Dürner. It was not until 1943 that Lohse made a breakthrough in his painting, standardizing his pictorial methods and developing modular and serial systems. His book “New Design in Exhibitions” was published in 1953, and he became co-editor of Neue Grafik/New Graphic Design in 1958. His systematic and constructive art, as well as his graphic design, gained worldwide recognition through important exhibitions and publications. Lohse passed away in Zürich in 1988, leaving behind a legacy of enigmatic complexity and linguistic dynamism in his works.
www.ftn-books.com has many Lohse titles available.
all the above are available at www.ftn-books.com