Works in progress

After graduating from high school, Roger Pfund trained as a graphic designer in Kurt Wirth's studio and at the Bern School of Art and Design. In 1966, 1967, and 1968, he received the Swiss Federal Scholarship for Applied Arts and in 1969 began a freelance artistic collaboration with Elisabeth Pfund. In 1970/71, they jointly entered the Swiss National Bank's competition for the design of new banknotes. Their designs were exhibited at Documenta 5 in Kassel in the "Parallel Image Worlds" section on the theme of social iconography. This was followed by further commissions for banknotes, including the predecessor to the current series in France, the Argentine and current series in the Comoros, and the Swiss passport, which has been in use since 2003.

From posters to the design of objects, sculptures, and stage sets to costumes and architecture, Pfund works for exhibitions and museums, musical events, theaters, humanitarian campaigns, and demonstrations. Examples include the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, monumental street campaigns, an exhibition on human rights, and the Forum of Peoples for Peace. His works include the PTT exhibition stand at Telecom 95 in Geneva, the "Arc en ciel," a modular aluminum bracelet, and poster series for Schweppes and Teo Jakob.

Pfund is a painter, graphic artist, designer, and "osmotic generator, (...) alienator. Not for formal reasons, but to explore the eroticization and demonization of a face. (...) Choreographer of sensory impressions, (...) precision fanatic who loses sight of the detail." Excerpt from Jean Christophe Ammann, "What does Roger Pfund do?", in: "Pfund," vol. 3, Zurich: Orell Füssli, 2006, p. 180.

Born in Basel, the school leaver completed an apprenticeship as a graphic designer and then trained as a graphic artist at the Basel School of Art and Design. In 1938, he was a founding member of the Basel branch of the Swiss Graphic Artists Association. He showed an early interest in fine art and in 1938 spent a semester studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Back in Basel, Rappaz opened his own studio in 1939, where he quickly made a name for himself as an imaginative and effective designer. From 1942, he worked for three years as a specialist teacher of graphic design at the Basel School of Design. In 1945, the EDI selected his poster

"Aufschwung" (Upswing) for Muba as the best poster of the year. In 1954, he married graphic designer Gisèle Joly, who remained his closest colleague throughout his life. His long-standing clients included textile companies such as Stoffel, Fischbacher, and Rohner, as well as Firestone-Werke, Muba, and Schweizerische Reederei AG. For these clients, he designed all the classic advertising materials, as well as trade fair stands that were exceptionally imaginative and had a great impact on the public. His estate includes a Super 8 film about the mechanically animated fantasy figures of a particularly creative Muba stand for Firestone-Werke. In the 1950s, Rappaz's work began to move away from figurative imagery, and he developed a more austere, constructivist style. After 1960, Rappaz gave up his career as a commercial artist and devoted himself entirely to fine art as a painter and sculptor until the end of his life.