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Tomás Gonda

1926

1988

Tomás Gonda, born in 1926 in Budapest, Hungary, was a graphic designer, illustrator, and photographer whose work was instrumental in the establishment of design in Argentina and the development of the “HfG Hochschule für Gestaltung” in Ulm.

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest from 1944 to 1946 and worked in both the “Almôs Jaschik” studio and as a freelance photographer. In 1948, he emigrated with his parents to Montevideo, Uruguay, where he learned Spanish and worked as a freelance graphic designer. A year later he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he designed magazines and exhibition catalogs as a freelance graphic designer, then worked for six years in the advertising agencies “Lintas” and “Ricardo De Luca Publicidad” until he opened his own design studio “Gonda Diseño” in 1956. In Argentina, according to the book “Tomás Gonda – A Life in Design”, he played a decisive role in the establishment of a profession in the field of graphic design and shaped design in Argentina through his implementation of European modernism.

In 1958, Gonda came to Ulm on the recommendation of Tomás Maldonado and taught at the “HfG Hochschule für Gestaltung” in Ulm in the departments of Building and Visual Communication until 1966.
During this time, he was also a member of Otl Aicher’s “Entwicklungsgruppe 5.” As a result, Gonda was involved in a number of important design projects for advertising and print graphics, packaging, and exhibitions, for example for Lufthansa, Braun AG, and Hermann Miller. In addition to Otl Aicher and Gonda, Hans (Nick) Roericht, Helga Laubender, Fritz Querengässer, Elfriede Knoll, and Alfred Kern worked in the group at the time. From the sixth issue onwards, Gonda also took over the design of the HfG magazine ulm.

After his time in Germany, he first followed an appointment at Columbus University in Ohio, USA, then worked in Milan as art director at Rinascente/Upim and later as a consultant for Pirelli.

In 1977, he finally emigrated to the USA, where he opened his studio “Gonda Design, Incorporated” a year later and ran it until his death 1988 in New York, USA.

In his later life, he also worked as an artist. Here he explored color, light, and geometric shapes in abstract form, with echoes of Max Bill’s ideas and concrete art. The photographs of his travels and his reportages on the post-war period in Ulm, with their sparse, almost documentary aesthetics, are also reminiscent of the “Ulm style” on the one hand, but on the other, there is also a very personal perspective from which the pictures were taken, which Gonda, despite the objectivity demanded in Ulm, did not allow himself to be deprived of. (kl)

Tomás Gonda
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north_east HfG-Archive Ulm north_east otl aicher 100: Design beflügelt north_east Graffica: Tomás Gonda: the graph of an 'emigrant' north_east museum digital baden-wüttemberg: ulm magazines north_east Findbuch Tomás Gonda, © 2012 Ulmer Museum / HfG-Archiv, Christiane Wachsmann
Objects by Tomás Gonda
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