M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication, a solo exhibition of Henry Steiner (b. 1934), the father of graphic design in Hong Kong. The exhibition celebrates Steiner’s influential graphic language with a selection of some of his most iconic projects tracing Hong Kong’s development for more than sixty years. The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday, 15 June 2024 in the Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries.

Henry Steiner designed the red-and-white hexagon logo for HSBC, the banknote designs for Standard Chartered Bank, and logos for many renowned Hong Kong-based companies. Born in Austria in 1934, Henry Steiner has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1961. His graphic designs are informed by principles he learned while studying under renowned American designer Paul Rand. He later pioneered a form of graphic communication that skilfully juxtaposes multiple cultural elements with visual acuity. His designs are often playful and engage the viewer through the element of surprise.

Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication highlights some of Steiner’s most significant and widely recognised projects from the 1960s to the present by featuring more than 200 objects from the M+’s Collections and Steiner’s personal collection. This exhibition is the second in the Pao-Watari Exhibition Series, a new series of monographic exhibitions on historically important figures and moments.

Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication is divided into two sections. The first one introduces Steiner’s formative years and arrival in Hong Kong. In 1938, Steiner’s family was forced to leave Austria after it was annexed by Germany. His education in New York exposed him to some of the leading artists of the day, and later at Yale School of Art, to renowned American designer Paul Rand. In 1961, Steiner was sent to Hong Kong to help open the Hong Kong office of The Asia Magazine. In 1964, he established his own company, Graphic Communication Ltd. (now Steiner&Co.), in Hong Kong.

The second section of the exhibition presents selected items from the M+ Henry Steiner Project Archive, showcasing how Steiner’s designs reflect the development of the city itself as well as changes in people’s everyday lives. Ranging from important landmarks like Ocean Terminal and Connaught Centre (now Jardine House) to the city’s promotional campaigns, consumer products, banks, hotels, and private clubs, the selected projects showcase some of Hong Kong’s most enduring brand identities.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, says, ‘We are delighted to celebrate the remarkable life and work of Henry Steiner, a leading figure in graphic design in Hong Kong and beyond, at M+. His transformational, cross-cultural design is deeply embedded in the everyday lives of Hong Kong people and has brought this city to the international stage. His work constitutes an important part of Hong Kong visual culture. This retrospective is the result of the museum’s years of research into building the M+ Henry Steiner Project Archive. With the commitment to deliver the stories of our region, we house the most comprehensive archival collection of this eminent graphic designer in the world.’

Tina Pang, Curator, Hong Kong Visual Culture, M+, says, ‘This exhibition elaborates Henry Steiner as a pioneer in designing for multi- and cross-cultural contexts, adept at integrating his modernist training in art and design with his deep knowledge of and sensitivity to the histories and vernacular languages of Asia. The exhibition not only presents Steiner’s most significant projects from the 1960s, but also traces his formative years and his engagement with visual art, which are lesser known to the public. Through the presentation of his key design projects, we invite the audience to discover how Steiner’s work has shaped Hong Kong’s visual identity and reflected the city’s social and economic development over the past decades.’

Henry Steiner says, ‘It gives me immense pleasure to witness my personal creative journey and my work in this solo exhibition at M+, a distinguished museum celebrating visual culture rooted in Asia. Hong Kong, the city I call home, has been a constant source of inspiration for my projects over the years. I take great pride in having contributed to the transformative growth of Hong Kong in various aspects and enabling a global audience to understand and reimagine the art of graphic communication as part of Hong Kong visual culture through this retrospective.’

Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication is curated by Tina Pang, Curator, Hong Kong Visual Culture, M+, and Dr Vennes Cheng, Associate Curator, Hong Kong Visual Culture, M+, assisted by Lok Wong, M+ Curatorial Assistant, and Ron Cheng, M+ Intern.

Opening talk

To coincide with the exhibition, M+ will host a free public talk with Henry Steiner and Billy Potts, local designer and writer, at The Forum, 14:30–16:00 on Saturday, 15 June 2024. The talk, titled In Conversation: Henry Steiner, will explore Steiner’s approach to graphic design and some of his favourite projects. The talk will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation in Cantonese. More event and registration details are available on the M+ website.

Ticketing arrangements

Visitors with General Admission tickets* can access Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication starting from Saturday, 15 June 2024, along with Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story, Things, Spaces, Interactions, and Movana Chen: Knitting Conversations.

M+’s first Special Exhibition on photography, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Noir & Blanc—A Story of Photography, is open to the public until Monday, 1 July 2024 in the Main Hall Gallery. The exhibition is dedicated to the medium of photography. It is the opening programme of the French May Arts Festival 2024, co-presented by M+ and the French May Arts Festival, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), and exclusively sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.

General Admission tickets are priced at HKD 120 for adults and HKD 60 for visitors eligible for concessionary fare, whereas Special Exhibition tickets allowing visitors access to all galleries are priced at HKD 140 for adults and HKD 70 for concession. Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Primitive remains free to all.

Tickets to M+ are available for online purchase via the M+ website, West Kowloon Cultural District website, West Kowloon Cultural District app, Cityline, China Travel Service (Hong Kong) Limited, Fliggy, Klook, KKday, and Trip.com. M+ Members and Patrons can enjoy unlimited General Admission access. For more information on M+ ticketing arrangements, please visit the M+ website.

*Concession tickets are available for full-time students, children ages 7 to 11, senior citizens ages 60 or above, persons with disabilities and one companion, and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients.

M+ Membership

M+’s annual membership and patron membership offer an exclusive experience of contemporary visual culture for people of all ages and backgrounds. M+ Members and Patrons can enjoy unlimited General Admission access, including Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication. Meanwhile, M+ Patrons can enjoy unlimited admission to all exhibitions with up to three guests per visit. Other membership benefits include three free admission vouchers to Special Exhibitions throughout the membership year, exclusive access to the M+ Lounge, M+ Private Viewing, priority ticket purchase, exclusive events, and more. For more information, please visit the M+ website.

About Henry Steiner

Henry Steiner (b. 1934, Austria) is one of the world’s leading graphic designers. Known as the father of graphic design in Hong Kong, he has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1961. After establishing his company, Graphic Communication Ltd., in 1964, later renamed Steiner&Co. in the 1990s, Steiner established himself as a pioneer in designing for multi- and cross-cultural contexts, adept at integrating his modernist training in art and design with his knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the histories and vernacular languages of Asia. Known internationally for his rebranding of HSBC, his work is woven into the fabric of everyday life in Hong Kong, present throughout the city from banknotes to buildings. Steiner’s designs are intelligent, articulate, and succinct. His approach often employs unexpected juxtapositions, humour, and visual storytelling, and is informed by principles that he learned from his mentor, the renowned American graphic designer Paul Rand with whom he studied at Yale School of Art in the 1950s. In 1995, he published Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in the Global Marketplace, one of the earliest publications on the results of designers working on assignments outside their own culture or in multicultural contexts, with Ken Haas. In addition to his design and branding practice, Steiner is an educator and advocate for the design industry in Hong Kong and has played a leading role in making Hong Kong design more internationally recognised.

About M+

M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, it is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. M+ is a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District

The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.