SVA Archives

July 30, 2018

It's a magic carpet ride

Sesame Street magazine of the 1970s put the stylized pop-psychedelic style of the TV program's animated sequences in kids' mailboxes.

June 08, 2015

Henry Wolf for Karastan carpets

An excellently memorable and surreal campaign photographed by Henry Wolf for Karastan carpets.

December 20, 2014

Saks Fifth Avenue’s Folio

Henry Wolf’s work for Saks hearkened back to his days at Harper’s Bazaar and Show.

October 12, 2014

Politics in print, by Henry Wolf

Henry Wolf took a variety of approaches to dramatizing the American political process in his magazine design.

October 08, 2014

The 1964 course announcement for Henry Wolf’s and Melvin Sokolsky’s photography course at SVA manages to be both instructive and artful, assembling outtakes of the instructors’ portraits in a way that elevates them.

March 23, 2014

Henry Wolf on typography

In 1958 Henry Wolf, newly appointed art director for Harper’s Bazaar, was tapped by the Advertising Typographers Association to write an essay on magazine typography for their bulletin.

October 01, 2013

I can see right through you

Henry Wolf created this School of Visual Arts course announcement for his friend, photographer Melvin Sokolsky.

September 20, 2013

Future games

“Man in Control?” at Expo 67.

August 28, 2013

Atomic-age publication design

Comment was a promotional periodical produced by consortium of printers in the early sixties. Issue 200 included contributions from Saul Bass, Will Burtin, and Henry Wolf.

May 07, 2013

On your toes

Duane Michals photographed George Balanchine for Show magazine.

March 25, 2013

Wonder Magazine, 1962

Wonder was the product of Henry Wolf’s class, Making a Magazine, at the School of Visual Arts. Conceived, designed, and written over the course of the Fall 1961 and Spring 1962 semesters, this one-off children’s magazine communicated with its audience in an exuberantly playful manner that never condescended. And it’s certainly the coolest-looking kids magazine I’ve ever seen. Wolf’s students included William Ingraham, Walter Bernard, Sullivan Ashby, Robert Giusti, Herbert Migdoll, Shirley Glaser, David November, Antonio Macchia, and Henry Markowitz.

March 04, 2013

Talk about the Passion

Milton Glaser and Henry Wolf’s magazine workshop pays tribute to the landmark erotic publication Eros.

January 29, 2013

Madison Avenue in the 1960s

Pictured: Sandy Kiersky, media director for Trahey/Wolf advertising and her fantastic eyeglasses. Click through for the full frame of this shot and pictures of their futuristic mid-century office at 477 Madison Avenue.

January 20, 2013

The glasses on the cover don’t exist

And yet…

January 15, 2013

Erasermate: Put it down and take it back

Wolf shot the photograph for this ca. 1980s Papermate ad, which was originally a full magazine spread. Presumably the art direction credit here includes the choice of this outrageous but strangely compelling combination of magenta boots, purple legwarmers, and high-cut acid-wash jeans. Against their layered, cool-tone palette, the yellow barrel of the pen stands out, its silver clip echoing the silver italic copy. The only snag here, in my opinion, is the affected rhythm of “Think, Re-think, State, Re-state,” which falls too comfortably into the exhausted “Big Idea” voice that was so prevalent in advertising a few decades before, and doesn’t really achieve any meaningful interaction with the image.