Matter studied painting in Geneva and with Fernand Léger in Paris and worked with Cassandre, Le Corbusier and at Deberny et Peignot. Having returned to Zürich, Matter made his reputation with his early travel posters for the Swiss National Tourist Board. He pioneered photomontage, combined with type. He came to the US in 1936, where he freelanced for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and other periodicals. He became the staff photographer for Condé Nast publishers. Matter also worked for the Swiss and Corning Glass pavilions at the NY World’s Fair 1939. He was a design consultant for Knoll (1946–66). Yale appointed him a professor of photography (1952–76). For ten years he was design consultant to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Herbert Matter had exhibitions in LA, at Yale, at the Zürich Kunsthalle and NY MoMA. He was elected to the NY ADC Hall of Fame (1977), received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in photography in 1980 and the AIGA medal in 1983.