The most notable characteristic of Heinz Waibl’s graphics is perhaps the encounter between the procedures for controlling composition, rendered elementary, and the ability to identify a synthesis, almost always abstract. The method, construction and control of the whole are often practised through the use of metaphors and visual allusions. Tenacious control and extreme reduction of the elements by which to carry out the project were a constant and a specific feature of the artist. Economy in acting was never adherence to a scheme, but a silent questioning of what was worth keeping, what to remove or add, to better express and make the project understood and communicate it. The exhibition displays his most representative posters and some studies for logotypes among the many materials preserved in his important archive donated to the m.a.x. museo and its library.
Heinz Waibl (1931-2020), a pupil and younger collaborator of Max Huber, during his long career of over sixty years worked with many illustrious names in design, ranging from Albe Steiner to Bruno Munari, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Giulio Cittato, Massimo Vignelli and Luigi Massone. He began working as a trainee in Huber’s studio in Milan, creating graphics for the Standa department stores, executive drawings for the posters for la Rinascente, Gasparotto, Innocenti and Borsalino. In August 1955 he married the graphic designer Agnese (Nene) Donatelli in Milan with Max Huber as best man. The following year he received the Compasso d’Oro, la Rinascente, with an honourable mention for the Jolly Shelf project produced by Artform. Between 1967 and 1971 Massimo Vignelli had Waibl join him in Chicago to work for the Unimark International Design and Marketing Company. In the USA, Waibl worked on important campaigns for companies. He then moved to New York for a short time and worked for Unimark International in Johannesburg for a year, before returning permanently to Europe in 1971. In 1974 he was proposed by the then president Franco Grignani and Walter Ballmer as a member of the prestigious AGI-Alliance Graphique Internationale, then became president of the Italian committee from 1994 to 2003. Also in 1974 he founded the Signo studio in Milan with Laura Micheletto. The Signo studio immediately achieved great success by creating coordinated images, trademarks, logos, publications, packaging and posters for cultural institutions and important clients.
His numerous collaborations included Venini Venezia (1978), the Franco Grignani exhibition (Milan 1984), Emilia Romagna Region (1985), Norditalia Assicurazioni (Milan 1987), PubliSer (Empoli 1987-1988), Canale 5 TeleMike (Milan 1987), Fondazione Pro Juventute Don Carlo Gnocchi (1987), Museo Archeologico e della Ceramica Montelupo Fiorentino (1988), Azienda Consorziale Acqua e Gas (Prato 1989), Palazzo della Marmora (Biella 1989), ADI Associazione Disegno Industriale (Milano 1990), Mazzucchelli (Castiglione Olona 1990), Bticino (1992), Provincia di Biella (1995-1996), Museo Archeologico La Civitella (Chieti 1998), Ministero dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali Soprintendenza Archeologica dell’Abruzzo (Chieti 1998-1990).
In addition to a lengthy collaboration with the Castiglioni brothers on the design of the stands created for Bticino and Intel in 1985/1987/1989, Studio Signo created the coordinated image of numerous commercial and non-commercial interiors, and the internal and external signage of exhibition stands. In 1992 Heinz Waibl moved from Milan to Schio (Vicenza) where he died in 2020.
Works by the author in institutional collections: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Archivio AIAP, Milan, Centro Internazionale d’Arte e Grafica CIAG, Chiasso.
