Richard Hollis exhibition installation view. Courtesy of Artists Space.
On view at Artists Space – Books & Talks location, New York is a solo exhibition surveying the career of British graphic designer Richard Hollis (born London, 1934), who is a seminal figure in postwar design and communication. Working consistently since the 1950s as a freelance designer, Hollis has also authored influential books on design history and theory. His practice has placed emphasis on close collaboration with those commissioning his design, including writers, editors, artists, curators and architects. An overriding concern for the effective and economic communication of the client’s message has been consistent throughout his work.
Richard Hollis exhibition installation view. Courtesy of Artists Space.
This exhibition, curated by design historian Emily King with designer Stuart Bailey, is the first overview of Hollis’ work in the US. Consisting of over 150 items drawn from the designer’s personal archive including finished pieces, layouts, and notes, it reflects his entire professional life. Hollis was greatly influenced in the 1950s and 60s by travels to Zurich, Paris and Cuba, his production during this time revealing the impact of Swiss modernist design and Concrete art, alongside that of left-wing politics. In the mid-1960s he co-founded with Norman Potter a new School of Design at West England College of Art, based on experimental teaching principles, and worked as art director and designer of journals including New Society and Modern Poetry in Translation, the last of which Hollis went on to design for a period of 40 years.
Richard Hollis exhibition installation view. Courtesy of Artists Space.
Over these four decades, Hollis also worked for numerous publishers, including freelance for Penguin, and as art director at the left-wing publisher Pluto Press. In 1972 Hollis was one of the team of five that produced the book of John Berger’s BBC TV series Ways of Seeing. This significant project crystallized ideas around the ideological function of visual images, forming a critique of representation that was extended into the innovative relations between image and text in the publication. Hollis also collaborated with Berger on the design of the novel G. (1972) and the study of migrant workers A Seventh Man (1975), produced with the photographer Jean Mohr.
For more information on Richard Hollis’ overview exhibition visit Artists Space – Books & Talks location, New York.
