walter nikkels - typographer

Under the directorship of Rudi Fuchs, typographer and designer Walter Nikkels (b. 1940) has had the role of defining the public image of the Stedelijk Museum.
The admiration Fuchs holds for his contemporary goes much further back, though, to the period when he was director of the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven (1975-1987). 
On the occasion of Fuchs's farewell, a presentation has been organised of Nikkels's graphic designs for the Stedelijk Museum. The familiar invitations for openings are to be seen -- an end result which is sometimes arrived at only after a good deal of painstaking cut and paste work, as is revealed by the designs that are also shown. There are catalogues and cahiers and an occasional poster too and the presentation pays attention to Nikkels's work for other clients as well.

Nikkels has received the H.N. Werkman Prize and the Charles Nijpels Prize for his typographic oeuvre. He does not however limit himself to typography. For instance, he has designed many exhibitions, including Dokumenta 7 in Kassel (1982) and, this year yet, the Van Gogh exhibition in the Kröller-Müller Museum. He was also responsible for planning the exhibition spaces for the Museum Het Kurhaus in Kleve. Since 1985 he has been a professor on the faculty of the Kunstacademie in Düsseldorf. He lives and works in Dordrecht and Cologne.

The selection for the presentation was made by Nikkels himself; the arrangement he did in close harmony with graphic art curator Carolien Glazenburg.
Fot ‘Up to now’ Nikkels choose and typesetted some lines from a poem by the Argentinean poet Roberto Juarsoz. The are painted on the walls around the staircase on the upper floor.