Erik Nitsche studied at the Collège Classique in Lausanne and the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich before working in Paris with Maximilien Vox and the printing firm Draeger Frères.
After moving to New York in 1934, he became art director for Saks Fifth Avenue and worked with Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and Ohrbach’s. His advertising clients included Douglas Aircraft, Scandinavian Airlines and RCA Victor, for whom he art-directed Record Review.
In 1947, Nitsche was appointed vice president of Dorland International, overseeing art and industrial design. He later worked with Filene’s, the Museum of Modern Art, 20th Century Fox and Decca Records.
His relationship with General Dynamics began in 1953. Two years later, he created Atoms for Peace, a landmark series of posters presenting atomic energy through abstraction, brilliant colour and scientific imagery, produced for the 1955 International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva.
