Gaál Mátyás
1909 - 1999
Matyas Gaal (sometimes written as Matyas Gal) was a poster designer, graphic artist and important poster collector.
He finished his studies at the end of the 1930’s, and had his first successes around 1940. At the beginning, he followed the classicist Art Deco style of György Konecsni. He used clean shapes, idealising symbols and clear compositions.
After successfully winning first prize at the Olympic poster competition in 1947, he designed a famous poster for the London Olympics in 1948. He also designed the poster for the centennial Budapest International Fair in the same year.
Between 1938 and 1940 he designed neon signs.
Later he worked as a propagandist for IBUSZ (Hungarian Travel Agency).
He drew playful, decorative compositions for commercial posters in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Gál designed not only posters, but also flyers, exhibition designs, emblems, etc.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s he made several agricultural and health care posters.
He was one of the most important poster collectors of the Postwar Era. He started collecting in the 1940's, and built a huge collection of rare Hungarian posters. Today, the core of his collection is in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery. .
