SVA Archives

December 17, 2013

Early LeWitt

We love our LeWitt here at Container List, and we recently found some very early exhibition announcements for his work at SVA and other galleries.

December 16, 2013

Lost and found

Newly unearthed SVA exhibition posters (1969-1970) from Cris Gianakos.

December 16, 2013

The many faces of Elliott Gould

For Time magazine, 1970: several versions of Elliott Gould, by Milton Glaser

December 15, 2013

Seth Siegelaub’s Xerox book

Our latest discovery—strongly recalling the original binder from Mel Bochner’s “Working Drawings…”— is a copy of Seth Siegelaub’s seminal Xerox Book.

December 13, 2013

Life Underground

Milton Glaser and Jerome Snyder ate their way through NYC so you didn’t have to.

December 11, 2013

Paper for packaging

Ten years before the rise of the supermarket generic brand, Champion Papers produced these colorful generic packaging designs for a series of print advertisements.

December 10, 2013

Portraits of Pnin

Several incarnations of Vladimir Nabokov’s most lovable protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin.

December 06, 2013

Illustrating ‘Seventeen’

Mid-century editorial illustration from the pages of Seventeen magazine.

December 01, 2013

Identity Programs by Noel Martin

Noel Martin was a renown self-taught typographer and designer who studied drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He later became an instructor there and was the long-time designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as a prolific free-lance designer. Martin was celebrated for modernizing museum graphics and industrial trade catalogs. In 1953, he was featured in MoMA’s landmark design exhibition, Four American Designers, along with Herbert Bayer, Leo Lionni, and Ben Shahn. His spiral-bound self-promotional piece, Identity Programs, presents some of his iconic minimalist logos.

November 30, 2013

Smiling faces

An assortment of Seventeen magazine advertisements from the ’50s and ’60s.

November 24, 2013

Love and joy about letters

Love and Joy About Letters is a testament to Ben Shahn’s love affair with letters: the beauty of the letter forms, the liberating influence hand-lettering, and how the incorporation of letters added meaning to his art.

November 20, 2013

Flashpoints and flash cards

The AIGA Journal for December 1969 featured the association’s annual review of textbooks and teaching aids. The latter ranged from sets of workbooks to a crate-size tool chest with several drawers of Platonic solids. Dangerous Parallel, pictured, was a Korean war simulation.

November 20, 2013

Working drawings

Milton Glaser’s sketch for the Working drawings and other visible things on paper not necessarily meant to be viewed as art poster became a part of the artwork.

November 16, 2013

C&G for Howard Wise Gallery

Chermayeff & Geismar designed a series of exhibition posters for the Howard Wise Gallery in the 1960s, highlighting the artists’ works. Wise exhibited abstract expressionists including Milton Resnick and Edward Dugmore, and later specialized in kinetic art and light sculputure.

November 12, 2013

Wondering where we’ve been?

The show revisits exhibitions of several decades, curated by the likes of David Bourdon, Douglas Crimp, Lucy Lippard, Phyllis Tuchman, and David Whitney (with posters designed by Milton Glaser, Cris Gianakos, Doug Johnson, B. Martin Pedersen, and many others). Not to forget student exhibitions that took place in SVA’s galleries in Tribeca and SoHo, documentation of performances by Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson, screenings and talks, and (my favorite) lots of little odds and ends—loan forms, hardware store receipts, doodles—gathered together in binders that reproduce the archival files for each show. Come say hi: the reception is next Thursday, November 21, 6-8pm.

November 12, 2013

To see a fine lady upon a white horse

A 1961 exhibition of the work of the SVA Department of Illustration is a who’s who of the practitioners of the new expressive and painterly illustration of the time.

November 10, 2013

The Mead Library of Ideas

In the 1970s, the Mead Library of Ideas held exhibitions showcasing the best contemporary graphic design; they commissioned announcement posters from designers including Tony Palladino, Chermayeff & Geismar, and Seymour Chwast.