Lohse: Printing themes
Collection of Prints and Drawings of ETH, Zurich
September 5 – October 26, 2007

When in 1953 Erwin Gradmann planned an exhibit in the ETH Graphische Sammlung called 'You live today' involving an ETH/University of Zurich student working group, the early prints of Richard Paul Lohse (1902 - 1988), together with those of Camille Graeser and Leo Leuppi, could have been shown. Leuppi was, in fact, together with Lohse the founder and first President of Allianz, an association of modern Swiss artists. In 1941 the Allianz publisher issued the portfolio 5 constructionen + 5 compositionen [5 constructions + 5 compositions], in which Lohse is also represented; in 1942 Rudolf Bernoulli acquired this work for the Graphische Sammlung. The eight Zurich artists, represented in the exhibit mentioned above, each provided a woodcut or linocut for this publication. This may explain why Lohse did not take part: at this point his preferred printing medium was lithography. A decade would pass before single works or series by Lohse found their way into thematic or group shows at the ETH.

Now the ETH Graphische Sammlung has dedicated an entire exhibit to Lohse and his printed work. Its core comprises nine silkscreen prints and the analysis sheet from the 1970 portfolio Vertikalen [Verticals] published by Galerie Renée Ziegler. While Lohse's early works were lithographs, from 1964 onwards he turned almost completely to silkscreen printing. Every representative of the Zurich 'Konkreten', or 'concrete artists', from the 1960s onwards preferred this technique because it made it possible to print well-differentiated areas precisely and in as many colours as desired. One characteristic of Lohse's printed work is also a close formal relationship between painting and printing. The Sammlung's holdings have been extended by works loaned from the Richard Paul Lohse Foundation archive, the Kunsthaus Zurich and Galerie Renée Ziegler.

Richard Paul Lohse initially and for several decades earned his bread in advertising illustration. In 2000 the Richard Paul Lohse Foundation published a compendium of his applied printing work with a detailed index. On the occasion of the Graphische Sammlung's exhibit the Foundation has also announced a forthcoming publication dedicated to Lohse's artistic prints.

Opening: Tuesday September 4, 2007, 18.00

Info: www.gs.ethz.ch