Avant Garde Graphics: 1918-34

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.

Avant Garde Graphics included rare posters, prints, book designs and political and commercial ephemera, together with original layouts and photomontages. It showed works by artists related to the Dutch de Stijl group, the German Bauhaus, and the Constructivists of Russia and Central Europe.

Artists included 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.