Montreux Pink/Yellow is a vibrant 1983 screenprint created by Keith Haring. The work is one in a trio that Haring created as a poster for the Montreux Jazz Festival, the second largest annual jazz festival in the world and mecca for music, held in Switzerland since 1967. Not only did Haring design the now-famous posters, he also spent his time at the Geneva fest painting shirts and walls, becoming one with the culture and reinforcing his philosophy that art is for everyone. Energetic and joyful, the Montreux series is enigmatic of Haring’s wondrous art style and showcases his aptitude for various artistic mediums.
Montreux Pink/Yellow center stages a large figure that seems to be dancing to Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” with an abundance of energy. Well-known for his mastery of the rainbow, Haring devised a color theory for his work and adhered to the belief that people were psychologically affected by color; this theory is proven in Montreux Pink/Yellow, with its palette of neon pink, blue, orange and yellow inspiring the feeling of warmth and giddiness that would be characteristic of a Swiss summer jazz marathon. The arrangement of the composition is simple, satisfying, and rendered in Haring’s signature style: bold, clean lines and geometric shapes.

The artist’s use of cartoon-like gestural lines, playground-slide twists, and angular extremities imbue the character with a sense of playfulness and movement and scores the piece with a musicality that captures the essence of the beloved jazz fest and what it means like to “dance like nobody’s watching”. With a swingin’ flair that every music lover can relate to, it is no wonder that Keith Haring’s Montreux posters are still remembered as THE logos of Montreux Jazz Festival.