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Donald Brun was born in Basel in 1909. From 1927 to 1930, he completed an apprenticeship in advertising art under the tutelage of Ernst Keiser, who at the time was teaching calligraphy to graphic design students at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel vocational school. From the 1930s onwards, Donald Brun created countless posters that shaped the history of Swiss graphic design and are now internationally acclaimed. Brun was also a sought-after trade fair stand designer, creating a large pavilion for the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958. He went on to teach a great many designers at what later became the school of art and design in Basel. Along with Fritz Bühler, Donald Brun was one of the co-founders of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) in 1952. Brun spent his final years in Montreux, where he died in 1999.

Along with Niklaus Stoecklin, Herbert Leupin, Peter Birkhäuser and Fritz Bühler, Donald Brun was one of the most prominent representatives of the old Basel school. His flawless craftsmanship, which can be seen in the many poster designs he painted, is tremendous. We have salvaged a body of work from his estate which fully showcases the illustrative ingenuity and distinctive hallmark of a master and his studio.