Ahead of Montreux Jazz festival kicking off in July, we look back on some of the exhibition posters designed by Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. Since 1967, Montreux jazz festival posters have been designed by a host of international artists. In 1983, Keith Haring produced a trio of posters for the festival in three different colourways.
In 1982, the first official exhibition of Keith Haring’s work was held at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York and proved to be a huge success. Pierre Keller, art director of the festival, met Haring a few months after and asked him to create a Festival poster that depicted a dancing figure. Keller was the mastermind behind the “carte blanche” posters of the Festival that originated in 1982, which “revolutionised the visual identity of the Montreux Jazz Festival”.
Haring came up with three designs, all of which were accepted. Featuring a writhing, dancing, faceless figure, the torso is defined by a coil, spring-like circular band. The black flecked dashes surrounding the figure indicate the motion, whilst one or both arms and feet are raised in movement. The name of the festival is scrawled in capitals beneath the image in Haring’s signature style.
Keller and Nobs invited the New York artist to Montreux festival. Predictably, Haring painted prolifically, producing murals on large blank panels on stage with the musicians and in the streets of Montreux.
1986 marked twenty years of the Festival and the fiftieth birthday of the founder of the festival Claude Nob. Keith Haring and Andy Warhol were asked to design this significant poster, which proved to be the first collaboration between the Pop Artists. Haring suggested that Warhol draw a series of staves and positioned dancing figures between them that resemble musical notes.
The two artists decided to paint the poster in red and yellow. “It’s very Swiss, and will remind people of Maggi seasoning,” Keller commented.
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