Celestino Piatti. Swiss Artist, Painter and Designer.
Celestino Piatti (1922-2007) was a Swiss graphic artist, painter and book designer.
He is popular for his illustration work for children’s books, though he also achieved international
success as a designer for Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (DTV), whose books, from 1961 until
the mid-1990s, were designed almost exclusively by Piatti, a total of over 6,300 titles !
In addition to the cover design, he was responsible for typography, Signet, letterheads,
advertisements and posters, providing a uniform identity to the DTV catalog.
A motif that runs through his entire work, is the owl, as a messenger of good luck or misfortune, or as
a symbol of wisdom. 1992 Piatti said in a magazine: “You can draw a thousand times the owl,
but never get its secret”.
I love his fresh strong lines and scratchy details. No wonder kids and adults liked him so much.
There is an interesting interview with Celestino taking about Poster art here.
I really like the ‘fox n owl in the trees’ and the ’2 owls flying past the trees’. His work is incredibly bold…..I wonder if he was as strong a personality ?
I see this work was also featured here http://www.myowlbarn.com/2012/09/collection-celestino-piatti.html