Alfred Roller
Secession XVI Exhibition
Artista
Alfred Roller
1864 Brünn – Wien 1935
Mostra
Sacred Spring: Modern Viennese Graphics 1897-1918, Neue Galerie Museum, New York 2025.
Letteratura
Varnedoe, Kirk, Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture & Design, New York 1986, colour ill. p. 109.
Provenienza
Collection/Estate of Serge Sabarsky, New York;
Collection/Vally Sabarsky Foundation, New York.
Collection/Vally Sabarsky Foundation, New York.
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Descrizione
Alfred Roller designed various posters for the Secession exhibitions
• They rank among the icons of poster art, in which the artist skilfully combines ornamental form, typeface and colour into a harmonious, almost musical unity
• His posters feature excerpts from works as well as unprecedentedly modern graphic forms
In 1902/03, Alfred Roller designed posters for exhibitions of the Vienna Secession. At this time, he was president of the Vienna Secession, which he had co-founded in 1897. Since the discovery of colour lithography had revolutionised the advertising landscape just a few years earlier, Roller’s posters were now works of art in their own right.
The 14th exhibition paid homage to Ludwig van Beethoven. Roller contributed a monumental mural, ‘Sinkende Nacht’ (Falling Night). His poster design took up this motif and expanded it into an ornamental form. For the 16th Exhibition the following year, he does not draw on a specific work but remains within the realm of graphic design. He distorts the typeface so that it strikes us today as "typical"; for his contemporaries, however, the solution represented a disruption of the familiar, a disturbance in the cityscape. Here, Roller reveals himself as a master of poster art, skilfully combining ornamental form, typeface and colour into a harmonious, almost poetic unity – whilst at the same time doing justice to the revolutionary character of the Vienna Secession.
• They rank among the icons of poster art, in which the artist skilfully combines ornamental form, typeface and colour into a harmonious, almost musical unity
• His posters feature excerpts from works as well as unprecedentedly modern graphic forms
In 1902/03, Alfred Roller designed posters for exhibitions of the Vienna Secession. At this time, he was president of the Vienna Secession, which he had co-founded in 1897. Since the discovery of colour lithography had revolutionised the advertising landscape just a few years earlier, Roller’s posters were now works of art in their own right.
The 14th exhibition paid homage to Ludwig van Beethoven. Roller contributed a monumental mural, ‘Sinkende Nacht’ (Falling Night). His poster design took up this motif and expanded it into an ornamental form. For the 16th Exhibition the following year, he does not draw on a specific work but remains within the realm of graphic design. He distorts the typeface so that it strikes us today as "typical"; for his contemporaries, however, the solution represented a disruption of the familiar, a disturbance in the cityscape. Here, Roller reveals himself as a master of poster art, skilfully combining ornamental form, typeface and colour into a harmonious, almost poetic unity – whilst at the same time doing justice to the revolutionary character of the Vienna Secession.