One of the most enjoyable niches of collecting is food and wine posters. Whether someone is looking for a poster for a dining room or a kitchen, or perhaps to decorate a restaurant or wine bar, or merely as an imaginative way to convey one’s gourmet tastes or large appetite for life, posters of food can feed almost any appetite.

Although food and beverage posters appeared among some of the earliest poster images in the 1890s, they were not particularly prevalent at first. A glimpse through the 240 posters that formed the Maitres de l’Affiche collection shows us only 23 food-related posters (less than 10%—and this was mostly for beverages, as they included hot chocolate, aperitifs, absinthe, champagne, coffee, bouillon, tea, beer, corn flour, and several cafes and restaurants).

Within the genre, there are few as notable as those from the Swiss School of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Realism) in the 1940s and 50s. More than just a feast for the eyes, these works align with a sophisticated art historical canon. Borrowing a name from the German movement that was a reaction to the abstractionist movements of the 1920s, not only were products rendered in a hyperrealistic manner, without abstraction or interpretation, but lithographic techniques were also used at an elevated and precise level, allowing for clearer, crisper printing than ever before. It has also understandably been referred to as Magical Realism and Magic Hyper Realism. Call them what you will, these posters, which are definitely NOT photographs, are so incredibly real that they are a tour de force of design and printing.

While a number of prominent Swiss artists designed posters in this vein, a few of them stand out as master craftsmen within the genre: Niklaus Stoecklin, Donal Brün and Herbert Leupin.

Works Created for Bell, the Swiss Meat Processing Company

Bell, the Swiss meat processing company, was founded in Basel in 1869. Throughout the twentieth century, they worked with many of Switzerland’s most prominent designers on their advertising, including Donal Brün, Niklaus Stoecklin, Herbert Leupin, Hermann Eidenbenz and Celestino Piatti. These formidable artists encompassed myriad design genres in their work, leaving a legacy of delectable, memorable and often humorous images for the company.

Herbert Leupin, Bell, 1939. Estimate $400 to $600.

Leupin was one of the most prolific Swiss poster artists in the post-war years. Leupin studied in Basel and worked with Paul Colin in Paris before he opened his own studio in 1937. One of his first major clients was Bell, for whom he designed this image. The design brief was simply to combine the brand name with a charcuterie image. Emblazoning a cutting board with the company logo was a simple, genius idea, and, by all accounts, this poster was a smashing success, with butchers even requesting the non-existent cutting boards with the brand name on them. More than anything else with this image, it is wonderful to think that even mortadella can find its place in graphic design history.

Donald Brün, Bell, 1951. Sold May 2017 for $312.50.

Celestino Piatti, Bell, 1960.

This poster is atypical of Celestino Piatti’s work, belonging more to the school of visual gags than to his oeuvre of “magic realism.” Nonetheless, we include it here because it is a pure joy to behold. It integrates photography with graphics in a strong, humorous, yet minimalist approach. The happy face, simply composed of a sausage for a smile, a red line nose and the company’s logo as an eye, becomes a brilliant exercise in visual communication.

Niklaus Stoecklin, Bell, 1963.

This unexpected image has a pork shoulder resting atop a delectable farm bucket filled with sauerkraut. While it certainly isn’t for everyone’s taste, it shows how this style of design and advertising lasted well into the 1960s.

Swiss New Objectivity Beyond Bell

Niklaus Stoecklin, Bon Appétit!, 1961. Sold May 2018 $8,450.

Stoecklin, one of the pioneers of the Swiss New Objectivity, revisited his hyperrealist style more than two decades after he had pioneered it. And it wasn’t just the smoked meat purveyors who were into this design game. This 1961 poster was commissioned by the Swiss egg industry to counter the rise in sales of imported eggs. Pictured above is the rare French version. The poster usually appears with the Swiss-German salutation, “E Gúete!”

Hugo Laubi, Vegetarisch Hiltl, 1933. Sold May 2017 for $1,105.

Hugo Laubi was an illustrator and poster designer. In 1918, he became Art Director at the Fretz Brothers printing house. This is an appealing combination of the traditional Swiss Object Poster with Art Deco illustration.

(left) Donald Brün, Co-Op Kaffee, 1943. Sold April 2014 for $5,000; (right) Donald Brün, Gesund und gut mit / Butter, 1951.

A prominent poster artist from Basel, Donald Brün’s style was ever-changing. He began his career with images that conformed to Niklaus Stoecklin’s Neue Sachlichkeit (New Reality). His style then became more humorous, much in the vein of Herbert Leupin, his prolific counterpart.

Franz Gygax, Gala Gerber, Circa 1950.

There is an inherent cultural and culinary irony in each of these images: when one thinks about Swiss cuisine or food specialties, one naturally gravitates towards chocolate or fondue, two of the country’s most renowned culinary exports. And yet, there are almost no prominent New Realism cheese posters, at least for neither Gruyere nor Swiss. But there is one notable design, for Gerber Gala cheese.