Interview Between Two Legends

This month we will present you an inter­view between two leg­ends. We are talk­ing about Ulrich Schmid-May­bach the founder and pres­i­dent of the May­bach Foun­da­tion and Michael Schwab one of the most renown artist in the Unit­ed States.

As you might know, Michael Schwab designed the DNA Mark­ers col­lec­tion for the May­bach Foun­da­tion. Today, we will dive a lit­tle bit into Michael’s past and how he became such a renowned artist who’s art you can even see on most Nation­al Park signs.

Here’s the Inter­view between Ulrich Schmid-May­bach (USM) and Michael Schwab (MS):

USM: You were born and raised in Okla­homa and went to col­lege in Texas. What brought you out here to the Bay Area?

MS: I grew up in Okla­homa before going to a great art school in Texas. I found myself with in the study of design back then and I end­ed up going from Texas to New York. From there I went to a great design school in Los Ange­les; graph­ic design, illus­tra­tion and film. I remem­ber in the halls of this art school, I passed by a class­room where guys would be mod­el­ing sleek trans­porta­tion designs and I remem­ber think­ing: „Wow that’s what cars are going to look like in the future.“ It was fun­ny, 10 years lat­er that’s what they real­ly looked like.

USM: How did you get into this pro­fes­sion? When did you know that was what you were want­i­ng to do?

MS: I always knew this is what I was want­i­ng to do espe­cial­ly after my edu­ca­tion in New York. This real­ly helped me ele­vate it to anoth­er lev­el. I was in school already, the kid in class that could draw, and I learned to enjoy every­thing that comes with this job. Which I think is quite unique if you can say you love what you do.

USM: Com­ing back to May­bach now. How did you approach the yacht poster for Maybach? 

MS: This is a sin­gu­lar icon­ic piece that I made for the May­bach Foun­da­tion. I want­ed to keep it bold and sim­ple. I did­n’t want peo­ple to look too much on the lit­tle things on the boat or any of the detail on the ship. There are so many things to look at in the world and I try to keep my art very bold and easy to look at. It should be pleas­ant to look at because it’s not com­pli­cat­ed. This is a mag­nif­i­cent seacraft; this ship and this craft. I want­ed to evoke that pow­er and a dream, this is usu­al­ly what I go for as it’s almost like the­ater and I am going for the dra­ma. The dra­ma and the beau­ty of it is the true essence.

USM: You won some sig­nif­i­cant awards for the art work you did with May­bach. Can you tell us a bit about that? What’s this mean to you? 

MS:Romance and dra­ma come into my work and that’s what I want­ed to do with May­bach. I became suc­cess­ful with the images of the Amer­i­can west (Amtrak for exam­ple). By land, by air and by sea and I also hope by street which means there might be a car in the future as well. I think win­ning these awards for the work I did for May­bach does mean a lot and shows that this is a good match up between May­bach x Schwab.

USM: If you would do anoth­er poster for May­bach like a car for exam­ple, how would you approach that? 

MS: For a car I would have to go hor­i­zon­tal. I would look at the car, how the shad­ows work, what the lines are and work of the dra­ma of those lines of the vehi­cle. It would be ide­al if there would be any way we could have a mod­el. I would try to evoke what that car is real­ly all about. That would be my goal in terms of this piece of art. I think for me graph­i­cal­ly impor­tant is the romance of the car and design. The back­ground must sup­port the romance in it. I don’t have a lot of flow­ery con­ver­sa­tion on what the hero of the romance is. What May­bach’s cars have is hero­ic and that makes it easy for me because I can cre­ate a unique hero.

USM: Peb­ble Beach just had its 70^th anniver­sary and you have done art for it as well, what exact­ly did you do?

MS: I did the Peb­ble Beach logo and it’s the por­trait of a lone cypress tree. If you buy any mer­chan­dise at Peb­ble Beach with the logo, I did that logo. It was great work­ing with them and cre­at­ing anoth­er piece of art that is lasting.

USM: How does it feel to see your art­work pret­ty much every­where in the Bay Area, on Nation­al Park sign or on brands like Maybach?

MS: I am get­ting old­er, and I see it out in front of me. It’s mak­ing me real­ize and look back and say: „Wow! I had a great run.“ I was so busy work­ing and being so ded­i­cat­ed even obses­sive with my work. The more I think about it, it makes me real­ize I am feel­ing like: „Yeah, all that time real­ly was well spent.“ I do feel proud on almost every­thing I have done. I am leav­ing the Bay Area now and tran­si­tion­ing out to Mon­tana where I bought 45 acres of land. I am at the point now where I am real­ly picky about what I want to work on. It’s very ful­fill­ing out there, I am able to do phys­i­cal work like I did in my child­hood. It’s ful­fill­ing being able to still do that.

USM: Is there some­thing you do today that you wished you had known years ago? 

MS: I think I would have been more assertive with more of my clients back in the old days. I was young and I was not a fine artist, I am not just an artist or a painter that paints what­ev­er the client wants. I am a com­mer­cial artist, now we say graph­ic design­er, or illus­tra­tor, but real­ly I have a client and I have the per­mis­sion to do some­thing for the client.

If you want to acquire some of the amaz­ing art that Michael Schwab has done for the May­bach Foun­da­tion just check out our shop: https://​may​bach​.org/​s​t​o​re/