Herbert Bayer first became involved with Container Corporation of America (CCA) when Walter Paepcke, at the suggestion of his wife Elizabeth, began commissioning advertisements from avant-garde artists and designers, advocating for a collaborative relationship between art and industry. After completing several innovative advertisements, Bayer designed an exhibition for CCA in 1945 titled “Modern Art in...
Known for her bold engagement with popular culture and mass communication, American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger provokes and entices the viewer with her cover design for the May 1992 issue of Esquire. Featuring a close-up, black and white photograph of the controversial shock-jock Howard Stern, the superimposed text obscures significant portions of his face, excluding...
As the San Francisco rock scene grew in the 1960s, posters were commissioned by the concert promoter Bill Graham for shows at popular venues such as the Fillmore Auditorium. David Singer produced more posters for Graham than any other artist, designing 75 posters from 1969 to 1990.[1] Although he had an unusual background for a...
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. Adelgunde “Gunta” Stölzl was one of the most successful women designers connected with the Bauhaus, the school founded in 1919 by the German architect Walter Gropius. The mission of the Bauhaus was to integrate art, design, and craft...
William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World (1894) relates the adventures of Golden Walter, a man who seeks to escape his mundane life and sets out on a sea voyage, eventually gaining control of the kingdom of Stark-Wall and the love of a beautiful maiden. The book was published by the Kelmscott Press, a private...
Although Elaine Lustig Cohen left behind a significant body of work, she did not really begin her own graphic design career until the death of her husband, Alvin Lustig, in 1955. Lustig, one of the most influential graphic designers, relied on his wife to serve as his secretary, draftsperson, and production assistant, becoming increasingly dependent...
The career of Alice Cordelia Morse reflects the changing role of women in art and society in the late 19th century. Morse was able to achieve success in many artistic fields, designing book covers, illustrations, and stained glass, while also experimenting with other decorative media such as china painting and needlework. Although this title-page design was...
A pioneering example of psychedelic design, this work was one of the 56 posters that Wes Wilson produced between 1966 and 1968 for the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. The posters were commissioned by the rock concert promoter Bill Graham, who gave Wilson free rein over his designs until disputes about money severed their connection....
Arthur Rackham created this captivating endpapers design for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, published in London by George G. Harrap & Co. in 1935. The book brings Poe’s tales of horror and suspense—including such favorites as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”—together with the expressive...
