Günther Kieser Modern Art Retrospective
Günther Kieser is one of Germany's most influential graphic designers who created concert posters for jazz and pop concerts. Kieser studied at the School of Applied Arts in Offenbach between 1946 and 1949. He started his career as a freelance graphic designer. In 1953, Kieser joined fellow graphic designer Hans Michel to form the Michel + Kieser agency. His start doing concert posters began when he joined the concert promoter Lippmann + Rau, who organized the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt.
Kieser's got his design concepts by continually listening to the artist's music until a concept would emerge that visualized the music's imaginary. His work is so fantastic that it is hard to believe he never used digital technology to produce his layouts. Instead, Kieser constructed models to form a visual then used photography to make the poster's image. For his most famous poster, the Jimi Hendrix "Medusa Head" tour blank, he used colored wires set into a musician's portrait. He constructed his 1995 Frankfurt Jazz Festival poster from dismantled piano keys arranged to spell the letter "S." Kieser handcrafted dolls for his Grateful Dead and Fleetwood Mac concert posters. The image was paramount in his layouts. He always put the typography away from the picture.
Frankfurt's Museum Angewandte Kunst and New York's Museum of Modern Art held Kieser exhibits. Modern art galleries in Mexico, Poland, and China have featured his work. Kieser turns 90 this year and still lives in his hometown Offenbach, Germany, close to his two daughters. The Bröhan-Museum in Berlin exhibited his posters in 2017. Below is a sampling of his retrospective.
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“Vintage Rock Posters offers a $20,000 reward for original Kieser Jimi Hendrix 1969 German tour blank with venue information printed on the layout. They are offering other rewards, so please go to the home page for more details.”
Vintage Rock Posters is offering a $20,000 reward for original Kieser posters with venue information printed on the layout. Other rewards are offered. Please go to the home page for more details.
Cecil Taylor Free Jazz, 26. Jazz Festival Frankfurt, 1995 © Günther Kieser
Jazz Head, Frankfurter Jazz Festival, 2000 © Günther Kieser
Grateful Dead, Germany Tour Blank, 1972 & 1974 © Günther Kieser
Ella Fitzgerald, Norman Granz, Jazz at the Philharmonic, 1959 © Günther Kieser
Jazz Festival Frankfurt, 1994 © Günther Kieser
Newcomers in Jazz, 16. Jazz Festival Frankfurt, 1978, © Günther Kieser
Charles Minus Epitaph, Gunther Schuller, Jazz Fest Berlin 1991 © Günther Kieser
Fleetwood Mac, Germany Deutsches Museum, Munich 1977 © Günther Kieser