Graphic Journey Blog

Mountain Man / part two.

If you haven’t already read part one of this reminiscence, the following might be a little confusing. So why not read the first part by clicking here.

February 2009. The meeting.

The blizzard was thickening as the Volvo drifted past the many neat chalets that punctuated the mountain road leading to the small ski resort of Schwenden. A few miles short of the village, we turned off the main road and negotiated our way down a tiny track flanked by pine trees heavily laden with fresh snow. 
 
The road opened out to coincide with a break in the clouds. Shafts of light illuminated the distant mountains. Below us, about a quarter of a mile ahead, was a long, low building of stone, glass and wood. Christian gestured that we had arrived at our destination. This was Altherrhaus, the home and studio of Oskar Altherr. 

At my last meeting with Christian in Zurich, he had told me more about Altherr’s extraordinary life. Born in 1919 in the heart of the Bernese Alps, he spent his early years working on his father’s farm. Fascinated by wood, Altherr designed and made furniture from a very young age, taking his inspiration from Swiss folk art. With a passion for all things visual, he spent a lot of time sketching the world around him. Later, his natural curiosity attracted him to the Russian constructivist movement and the films of Sergei Eisenstein...

 Designed in the1920s by the Russian Constructivist artist Alexander Rodchenko 

Sergei Eisenstein's Strike 1924

Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin 1925

which the young Altherr had only read about. He found the dramatic composition of image and the juxtaposition of typography thrilling but without really understanding their meaning. 

In 1937 at the age of 18, and with little money, Altherr packed a rucksack and headed for Basel to see the constructivist exhibition on display there, hoping to get closer to a creative world that was beginning to stir within him. Unfortunately, he only got as far as Zurich, having managed to get run over by a car, ending up in hospital with a severely broken leg. But the event was to change his fortunes.

The person involved in the accident was Annemarie Schwarzenbach...

Annemarie Schwarzenbach the celebrated Swiss writer and intellectual

She was from one of the richest families in Switzerland at that time. Altherr was taken from the hospital and transferred to the family retreat in the mountains to recuperate. As the days passed in this alpine splendour, Altherr spent most of his time in the house’s extensive library. Encouraged by Annemarie, he consumed the works of Sartre, Proust and Dostoyevsky.

At the end of his convalescence, he was given the opportunity to work for the family as a handyman. 

Altherr in 1938 aged 19 

He became very popular and was completely embraced by the family, often holidaying with them in Italy and Greece. In 1940, having saved enough money and with the generous support of the Schwarzenbach family, he attended the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), where he studied architecture. His accident had left him with a limp, and he was turned down for national service in the Swiss army. Upset by this, he immersed himself in philosophy and went on to study graphic design in Basel.

Later, Altherr travelled extensively: first to India, then to Tibet and finally to Japan. He returned to Switzerland in 1949, moving into a small farmhouse that had been left to him by an uncle. Over the next four decades, the property was transformed into the beautiful and impressive structure that Christian and I had finally arrived at.

We made our way through the virgin snow to be greeted by Altherr’s partner, Hanako Yamauchi, some 20 years his junior. They had met in Japan in the mid-1960s when Altherr was studying the philosophy of Nichiren, the 13th-century Buddhist reformer. Altherr later joined the Buddhist faith. Hanako was a potter specialising in porcelain. She and Oskar had become close friends, and she had travelled back to Switzerland with him, never to return to Japan. She became Altherr’s muse and life partner, inspiring him not only to develop his teaching philosophy but also to create a unique space in which to experiment. 

And here I was, at last, being ushered into a large entrance hall, confronted by a row of neatly placed slippers. In true Japanese fashion, this was a no-shoe zone. We moved through into a large, intimately lit, book-lined room with an imposing central stone fireplace at which Oskar Altherr was standing, backlit by a crackling blaze. 

I don’t quite know what I was expecting: certainly not the extremely tall, rather dashingly elegant figure standing before me. He was wearing a weathered, navy blue French farm worker’s jacket and an equally well-worn pair of dungarees, topped off with a red polka-dot cravat and a pair of black espadrilles. He looked every inch the reclusive creative. “Come, sit here by the fire”. His voice was mellowed by age and had a warm German accent. He addressed Christian in German, giving him an affectionate hug with the words “Willkommen zu Hause, mein Sohn”. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t speak a word of German. But I could see that Christian was visibly moved by what had been said. 

Oskar and Hanako could not have been more welcoming. Oskar turned to me and said: “You will have to stay the night. I fear this blizzard is going on for a while. Hanako will show you to your room. Go freshen up and we will speak later”.

The house was an Aladdin’s cave of books, paintings, posters and an array of classic pieces of twentieth-century furniture, along with what looked like handcrafted pieces – which, I was later to discover, had been made by Altherr. I was going to enjoy this unexpected stay.

One of Hanako's delicate bowls sitting below a William Scott painting, given to Altherr by the artist in the 1960's.  
  

I had kept my word about not bringing a camera or a recorder. But I have to admit that I did have my mobile, which of course did have a camera. The temptation to snap a few guerrilla shots was just too much. The pitiful range of photos you see punctuating this piece – and in part 3 to come – were taken rather hastily during my short stay and mostly in the bedroom I occupied. They have never been seen before and only now, since learning of the sad death of Altherr, do I feel I can share them.

Caved figure by Altherr. The small photo shows a five-year-old Oskar with mother. 

After a delicious dinner prepared by Hanako, which, much to my relief, was totally vegetarian – like me, Altherr too was a lifelong vegetarian – we sat around the large refectory-style table and chatted. After a suitable preamble, I asked Oskar the burning question: why had I never heard of him? And indeed, why was there no mention of him in Richard Hollis’s definitive book ‘Swiss Graphic Design’ (Laurence King, 2006)? He looked across at me in an almost fatherly way and said: “Well that is very straightforward. I choose not to be known. Part of my creative and philosophical belief is that one should remain anonymous. Our world is populated by egotistically driven individuals, and each decade it is becoming more apparent. They want everyone to know how clever they are. I find this attitude totally baffling and utterly vulgar. So my life’s experiment has been to become invisible. My work is always uncredited. That is the way I like it.”

Rather taken aback by this, I asked when he had decided on this rather unusual policy. “In the mid-1950s, I spent a very brief time at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm [the most influential design school in the world after the Bauhaus]. I discussed the possibility of teaching there with Inge Scholl.

Inge Scholl in the mid 1950 at Ulm.

The entrance to Ulm early 1950s

The Ulm campus designed by the Swiss artist, designer and architect Max Bill 

But after a few probationary months, it became so claustrophobic, brought about by the stifling egos of the many professors whom I came into contact with. I find it extraordinary that when you get a group of creative people together, and in this case, they were all very successful in their own right, it seems to bring out the very worst characteristics. And at Ulm, it was insufferable. But I had made friends with a number of the young students. I felt very sympathetic towards them. They were like open vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge and to be motivated. But most of the tutors were totally aloof and inattentive. This gave me the idea of establishing a new way of teaching that looked at the ‘totality’ of the designer, not just the intellect. And I set about creating this experimental space, which has been a wonderful experience for me and I hope my students.”

Students at Ulm in the 1950s.

Christian interjected. “It was the most wonderful experience for me, and it changed my life utterly”. I asked Oskar when the last students had attended and how things had worked. “My last students were here... maybe ten years ago?” He looked towards Hanako, who smiled gently and nodded. Oskar continued: “Yes, ten years. I was then reaching my eighties and I felt it was time to move on to a new phase in my life, so I stopped.” He went on to explain that, in all, there had been no more than 25 students over three decades. They had all kept in touch with him and were spread across the world, working in a range of creative fields. Apparently, there was a world-renowned architect, a film director, a writer and even an actor. Curious to know who they were, I was quietly put in my place. “They will never make it known that they were ever here. That is ingrained in the philosophy.” I recall on my first meeting with Christian that he had avoided revealing anything, including giving me his real name. And it was only at our later meeting that I gained his confidence, and my dogged persistence had got me here. But it was well worth the effort, as I was about to discover.

 To be continued 

In part 3: How I nearly drowned in the lake. The studio visit. Plus the greatest shock of all. To hear it click here.

 

 

John McConnell: Face to Face

 

This is John McConnell RDI...

Or rather this is...

The top one is a graphic self portrait by McConnell.  

After re posting my Derek Birdsall interview recently, I have unearthed this one with former Pentagram partner John McConnell from 2001. It was also in  my ‘Heroes’ series for Design Week. Here is a re reposted with updates and a postscript.

Face to Face

This is one occasion when the introduction to my next hero can be remarkably short as there can be few designers, illustrators or photographers who haven't worked with John McConnell over the past 40 years. I met him on a rainy windswept night, clutching my umbrella while trying to negotiate my way to his discreet house, tucked away in London's Bayswater.

BIBA logo 1963
 

McConnell is a round-faced, compact man, with a tendency to talk in staccato bursts. He is standing in his kitchen swathed in a navy blue apron, brandishing a ladle, which he is using to add stock to the dish he is creating for our supper. This turns out to be a rather protracted affair, as I keep interrupting him with questions.

Three bottles of wine and a bowl of very good asparagus risotto later, McConnell produces a torpedo-sized cigar and proceeds to engulf himself in smoke. By this time we've journeyed through his early life, later professional career and had slipped into anecdotes about friends in the industry. Time to go home, I thought.

Poster 1980

McConnell was born in 1939 in Balham, London, made famous by Peter Sellers who coined it ‘Gateway to the South’ on his famous comedy recording. He has little recollection of this period as the family moved to Ruislip when he was seven. His father was an accountant and his mother a history teacher. The family moved again when his father became ill, to a country village outside Maidstone in Kent, where they opened a small grocery shop.

His parents were hardworking with a Quakerish streak and he was brought up with the view that to be lazy was a sin. On a small hand-printing press in the back of the shop, the young McConnell was given the task of customising the shop's brown paper bags.

School life for McConnell was a struggle, particularly in academic subjects, and he gravitated naturally to the crafts. Woodwork became a favourite, more of which later. As with many designers I have met, and I include myself in this, dyslexia seems to have been present. But few understood it back in the 1950s. McConnell's failure to pass the 11-plus exam concerned his mother enough to have her son undergo an IQ test. Although he scored high, he still had to leave school aged 14 without any formal qualifications.

Face Photosetting 1968 – 1980

But, as with other designers I have profiled, there is often a sympathetic teacher, the unsung hero, who steps in to enlighten the child and nurture their hidden gifts. In McConnell's case it was Mr Hindbest, his woodwork teacher, who encouraged his parents to send him to Maidstone College of Art to develop his craft skills.

He started at the Saturday morning classes, later securing a place on the full-time course. Over the next two years he tackled everything from lettering to silverwork, from stone-cutting to screen-printing. When the principal left, Bill Stobbs, who had been a tutor of graphics at the London College of Printing, replaced him.

Bookcover

Stobbs quickly shook up Maidstone's quiet, craft-based complacency, and in the process ignited McConnell's interest in a new world. He recalls coming in one day to see three dapper young men wearing the latest American Ivy League fashion: lightweight tweed jackets with patch pockets, blue Oxford cotton button-down shirts and penny loafers. He was transfixed.

Poster 1995

Stobbs had brought in the fashionable trio as part-time lecturers. They were George Kayford, Desmond Jeffrey and Derek Birdsall. McConnell's new world was about to begin.

We break off our conversation and wander into McConnell's garage. He has converted it into an impressive workshop and sitting on one of the benches is a large wooden structure. He explains that it is an accurate scale model of Felipe Brunelleschi's Ox lift, a device that was invented while Brunelleschi was working on the construction of his famous cathedral dome.

McConnell is clearly a gifted carpenter. The model is perfect with crisp joints, a series of dowelled cogs and a complex pulley system. And as McConnell enthusiastically points out, it has an ingenious reverse gear. I'd never seen him this animated before. It was very clear that Mr. Hindbest did a very good job with his young charge all those years ago.

Signage 2003

Back at Maidstone School of Art, life for McConnell changed dramatically. He immersed himself in a new-found world of graphic design, and absorbed as much as he could, especially from Kayford, Jeffrey and Birdsall. He befriended Jeffrey, who allowed him to help out on the printing press at his small studio in London's Marylebone Lane.

McConnell enjoyed this greatly and a little later, when he had left college and was working at an advertising agency in Baker Street, he would often pop round the corner to see Jeffrey, to unload his frustration about the cynical bunch of people he found himself working with.

NPG Poster 1993 Napoli 99 Foundation 1985

They were dismissive of McConnell's love of Swiss-style graphics and unimpressed with his copies of Graphis magazine. While contemplating leaving, the hand of Government intervened and he was called for a medical for the statutory two years National Service.

He had been convinced he was going to miss out on this because it was being phased out. But now he had visions of being the last man in England to be called up. He hatched a fiendish plan to induce a heart condition, involving sleep deprivation and large quantities of alcohol. But it didn't work. He was going to have to serve.

NPG Poster 1993

While waiting for the official call-up papers to arrive, he had a brainwave. Southern Ireland did not have an extradition agreement with the UK. So he packed his bags and without leaving a forwarding address, skipped the country.

Dublin in the late 1950s still resonated with the sound of Brendan Behan and Samuel Beckett, and while there McConnell fell in with a bunch of literary students from Trinity College. Together they made an incomprehensible 16mm film, drank a lot and found time to do a little bit of advertising work. After six months he received the all clear to return to London.  In 1960 he joined the design company Tandy, Halford and Mills. Most of his time there was spent designing packaging. He got himself a flat in Portman Square, formerly lived in by cult photographer Michael Cooper and artist Allen Jones. He met his wife Moira and decided to take the plunge into the freelance world.

Logo 1999

To support this, his old tutor Jeffrey found him some teaching work at Colchester School of Art. McConnell was fired for failing to get any of the illustration students good marks. But he did get four graphics students into the Royal College of Art, which was some achievement.

By now he'd established a reasonable number of freelance clients and rented a studio in King Street, Covent Garden. This was a time when the ground underfoot would move due to the build up of discarded vegetables; the air was heady with a rich smell of fruit and flowers and the bustle of porters and the constant comings and goings of the lorries made it an amazingly colourful place, far removed from the sanitised tourist destination it is today.

Poster Imperial War Museum 1989

Rents were cheap and it became an enclave for graphic designers. Close to McConnell's office was that of Birdsall's. Quickly McConnell graduated to a more spacious office in Neal Street, large enough to sub-let; John Gorham and Arthur Robbins were tenants for a while.

McConnell's work was now being noticed and his biggest impact at this time came with his identity, print and packaging work for the fashion boutique Biba. Its simple Art Nouveau-inspired logo was perfectly in step with the psychedelic, crushed-velvet period and in 1969 McConnell picked up a D&AD Silver for this work.

Pentagram Papers

Early on, McConnell mastered the art of collaborating with other creatives to strengthen an idea. His work for Face Photo Setting, a company he started, would often be shared with Gorham. Their endless reinterpretation of faces, both visual and typographical, created a friendly rivalry and some very memorable work. It was here that he exploited his love of engravings and the humble small ad illustrations, which he used to great effect.

Faber & Faber 1981

McConnell became consultant art director to the sheet music publisher Omnibus Press. And where others might have hogged the whole show, he commissioned a variety of designers and illustrators to produce covers. This reflected well on his abilities as an art director and his work came to the notice of Alan Fletcher.

The two met and Fletcher asked McConnell if he would like to work for him at Pentagram. McConnell took this to mean an assistant's job. He politely told Fletcher he was happy running his own show and would be interested in becoming a partner. The suggestion turned into a reality and 28 years later McConnell is still there (no longer).Book cover for Penguin

But McConnell remembers his first year at Pentagram as one of the most depressing periods of his life. Given the task of designing an exhibition for British Rail, McConnell could feel the critical eyes of his fellow partners boring into his back. When he had finished the project both Kenneth Grange and Alan Fletcher made it known they hated what he'd done and, they added, so did the client.

This was despite the fact that it had been a hit with the public. Demoralised and contemplating throwing in the towel, McConnell realised that in this partnership you had to be capable of fighting your own corner, no matter how big the prestige or egos of the other partners.

Book cover

After this realisation he settled down to strengthen his already impressive entrepreneurial skills and in a short space of time was acting as design director for Clarks shoes, Polaroid, Boots and Faber & Faber. These were all seriously meaty jobs, needing an amazing amount of organisational skill. But for McConnell the more complex the task the happier he was.

At Faber, McConnell immediately reorganised the way it commissioned its creative work, which, to him, was every bit as important as the design work itself. His success gave him a seat on the board and considerable power, but, after 15 years, he felt his presence and seniority was getting in the way and he stood down. The Faber account is still handled by Pentagram (no longer), but gone is the holistic approach that McConnell had spent so much time perfecting.

Signage 

At 63 (now 82), McConnell shows no sign of slowing down. The act of creating is his life, be it in the quiet of his garage or in the engine room of Pentagram. He still makes the regular fortnightly trip to Boots the Chemists in Nottingham, to preside over the design management meeting (no longer).

It would take up far too much room to list the many accolades he has received over the years. But take my word for it, he's won, judged or been president of them all.

Poster 1995

There is a rather charming link with those early years that McConnell spent helping out in the family's grocery shop. Each morning he sets off for Pentagram, negotiating his way through the back streets of Bayswater. But not, as you would expect, in a company car or a taxi, but on an old, upright delivery bicycle,

This is not actually McConnell's bike but similar

complete with basket. An amusing sight and one that must transport McConnell back to that small, leafy village in Kent, over 60 years ago.

POST SCRIPT: John McConnell left Pentagram in 2005. (he's now 82)  he is currently running his own company, McConnell Design, occasionally from Pentagram's offices's. One dark night his beloved delivery bicycle was stolen. But I gather he has replaced it and continues with his daily exercise (I don't think he does this now) peddling the mile from his Bayswater home to the office in Needham Road. With the death of Alan Fletcher in 2006 and the departure of David Hillman the heyday of Pentagram has gone. The waft of those Cuban cigars no longer lingers in the corridors and meeting rooms of the old dairy and perhaps the egos and personalities too are now more tempered? 

Starry-eyed

The magnificent beauty of Marlon.

And the eternally young and delectable Jean.

 

 

Urban wit

Sometimes life is a free show.