Celestino Piatti
Designer, Painter, Illustrator
Swiss
1922 - 2007
Celestino Piatti was born in Wagen-Bruttisellen, Switzerland. Piatti was trained in tKunstgewerbeschule under Ernst and Max Gubler in Zurich. He was a member of Fritz Buhler’s team from 1944-1948. In 1948, he established his own graphic design studio. Within a few years he designed posters, advertising campaigns, exhibition designs, packaging, illustrations for national and international clients. He designed over 3000 book covers for DTV in 20 years.
He created murals showing the Swiss voting system at the Swiss pavilion at Expo’67 in Montreal. He received numerous awards for his posters and books. In addition, his works also included stamps for the Swiss post office, lithographs, woodcuts and linocuts, stained glass, murals and other paintings, ceramics and sculptures. A motif that runs through his entire work, is the owl, as a messenger of good luck or misfortune, or as a symbol of wisdom.
"You can draw an owl a thousand times, and never find out its secret".
-Piatti
books by Piatti
The Happy Owls (1963)
Celestino Piatti's Animal ABC. (1965)
Celestino Piatti's Animals (1966)
Animal ABC (1966)
Piatti: The Nock Family Circus (1968)
The Holy Night: The Story of the First Christmas (1968)
The Golden Apple (1970)
The Little Crayfish (1974)
Barbara and the Door Mouse (1976)
