Oral History #1: Gielijn Escher

Long ago, sometime in the mid-1990s, the Dutch Graphic Designers Archive (NAGO) was founded. NAGO's main goal was to safeguard and make accessible the legacies and archives of important Dutch graphic designers. Many archives were subsequently made accessible and permanently housed at renowned heritage institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam, and the IISG.

What NAGO failed to do at the time, or at least did insufficiently, was to add contextual information to the archives by thoroughly questioning the designers themselves, their clients, the printers, and colleagues with whom they collaborated. This information could have provided greater insight into the design processes and would have added an interesting, important, and enjoyable layer to the objects resting in the boxes.

The Allard Pierson Museum—the institution that now houses a large number of the original NAGO archives—is going to include the working archive and poster collection of poster artist Gielijn Escher in its collections, and now there is an opportunity to interview both Escher himself and people from his immediate and professional working environment. In a pilot project set up in collaboration with the Reinwardt Academy, the first steps have been taken to develop an oral history format to record interesting and important contextual information in spoken word and on film. In three modules of around six weeks each, a total of around thirty students conducted a dozen interviews that, in addition to Escher's own motivations, also provide insight into graphic design in a broader sense.

This oral history approach leaves us wanting more. It can, and hopefully will, be used to map out the material surrounding Gielijn Escher, but the previously disclosed archives could also be provided with a broader context. It is an excellent opportunity to kiss this dormant heritage awake.