Tibor Kalman

Once Tibor flew me 8000 miles to address the American Institute of Graphic Arts on the state of European design. The talk lasted exactly nine minutes. It needed to be exact for accompanying me on stage was a man preparing for bed, who would start amplified snoring at eight minutes and 59 seconds.

Hard fact choreographed with the absurd.

Life to Tibor was one big shopping trip. An endless consummation of the visually naive, the amateur and the obscure. He absorbed global culture and cliché with equanimity and fed them back to us wrapped in his own brand of humour.

By contrast, I often felt my own knowledge stilted and parochial, but it was this difference he rejoiced in. I introduced him to the pork pie. He showed me his view of New York.

Like the great Brazilian footballers, he was hailed by one name. He was an artist, a man in a hurry. Sadly, we know why.

Howard Milton

Smith & Milton

See Review, page 40