Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Lumpenball Flyers by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert

'Lumpenball' is a popular(?) type of ball in Germany where guests come dressed in ragged and tattered clothes.


2. Lumpenball am Fastnachtssonntag im Industriehof (Second Ragged Clothes Ball on Carnival Sunday at the Industriehof), c. 1925


An die Freunde des Lumpenballs!! Das Sommerfest der progressiven Künstler ist am Samstag den 14. Juli (To the Friends of the Ragged Clothes Ball!! The Progressive Artists Summer Party Is on Saturday, July 14), 1928


Da ist er wieder Hurra der Lumpenball No 1 im Dekke Tommes am Samstag, den 19. Januar (There It Is Again The Ragged Clothes Ball No. 1 at the Dekke Tommes on Saturday, January 19), 1929


Wo verbringen Sie die kurzen Tage? Der Lumpenball ist Fastnachtssamstag Fastnachtsmontag Fastnachtsdienstag am Dekke Tommes (Where Do You Spend the Short Days? The Ragged Clothes Ball is on Carnival Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday at the Dekke Tommes), 1930


Der erste Lumpenball ist am Samstag den 17. Januar (The First Ragged Clothes Ball Is on Saturday January 17), 1931


Der 2te Lumpenball ist am Samstag den 31. Januar (The Second Ragged Clothes Ball Is on Saturday, January 31), 1931


3x Lumpenball (Three Times Ragged Clothes Ball), 1931


Der Lumpenball das Fest der progressiven Künstler ist am Samstag den 16. Januar, No 20 (The Ragged Clothes Ball, Party of the Progressive Artists, is on Saturday, January 16, No. 20), 1932


Lumpenball No 22, 23, 24- Die Fester der Progressiven Künstler (Ragged Clothes Ball Nos. 22, 23, 24- A Party for Progressive Artists), c. 1932


Der Lumpenball in Silber, der 25. Lumpenball am 28. Januar (The Ragged Clothes Ball in Silver, The Twenty-fifth Ball on January 28), 1933

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More of Franz Wilhelm Seiwert's works at the MOMA's website [link]

Monday, December 28, 2009

Elaine Lustig Cohen

Yesterday TheSilverLining posted some great links to Elaine Lustig Cohen works. Here are some more of her works that I have not seen posted elsewhere.


A Type Specimen page, 1950

"Elaine Lustig Cohen (b. 1927) is the pioneering female graphic designer who incorporated the aesthetic vocabulary of European modernism into American graphic design, during the 1950s and 1960s. After training as a painter, she developed her design skills working with Alvin Lustig (whom she married in 1948). Following Lustig's premature death in 1955, she took control of the studio and between 1955 and 1961 produced a distinctive series of covers for publishing houses Meridan Books and New Directions. With their strong concepts, abstract forms and typographic invention, they represented a break from the prevailing tradition of pictorial illustration in book-jacket design. Her ability to summarize the content of text in the cover design was further aided when, working for architects including Eero Saarinen and Philip Johnson she produced signage schemes intended to express a building's character. She designed many posters and catalogues for New York-based arts organizations, including the American Center for the Arts, the Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Jewish Museum. She married Arthur A. Cohen, publisher of Meridian Books; in 1973, they established Ex Libris, New York, a bookshop and gallery specializing in rare volumes of the European avant-garde. In 1995 her contribution to graphic design was acknowledge by an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York." (Livingston, 2003, 51). She continues to paint and create dynamic graphic collage-based work and is represented by Julie Saul Gallery, New York. Elaine Lustig Cohen donated her collection to RIT in 2008. " -Graphic Design Archive Online


7th Annual Purim Ball, The Jewish Museum, 1963


Hans Hoffman, 1997


Primary Structures: Younger American & British Sculptors, 1966


Literature in America, 1957


The Philosophy of Spinoza, 1958


The Federalist, 1961


Dangling Man, 1959


Max Ernst: Sculpture and Recent Painting, The Jewish Museum, 1966


Jonathan Edwards, 1959


Silver and Judaica Collection, The Jewish Museum, 1963


The Recollections of Alexis De Tocqueville, 1958


The Ideal Reader, 1997


The Disinherited Mind, 1958


Joseph Conrad, 1947 (co-designed with Alvin Lustig)


The Book of Jazz, 1958


Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 1959


Scenes From the Drama of European Literature, 1959


Jerusalem and Rome: The Writings of Josephus, 1960


Clear Writing, 1959


God and the Way of Knowning, 1957


Artists and Enemies - Three Novelas, 1997


New Year's Party Invitation, 1958

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see more of Elaine Lustig Cohen's book covers @ Scott Lindberg's excellent flickr page [link]
and at Graphic Design Archive Online [link]
also see thesilverlining's post which inspired me to finally post these [link]
there are a few more of her works at my flickr page [link]
and even more works at Julie Saul Gallery [link]

Sunday, November 1, 2009

¡Feliz Día de los Muertos!


Muerte en cruceta; by Lola Cueto, 1947


La bohemia de la muerte; anonymous, 1958


El crepusculo de la noche, in Tricolor no. 35; July-August 1924


El Hospital Juárez - (Ironia); by Carlos Neve, 1951


detail of Calaveras televisiosas todo por un hoyito; by Leopoldo Méndez and Mariana Yampolsky, 1949


Levantaos de sus fosas, calaveras, que aquí se halla el mayor de los troneras; by Manuel Manilla, 1971


Levantaos de sus fosas, calaveras, que aqui se halla el mayor de los troneras, by Manuel Manilla, 1904


from Veinte años de vida del Taller de Gráfica Popular; Andrea Gómez, 1957


by Julio Ruelas, 1903


from L'ABC no 15; by José Clemente Orozco, November, 1 1925


from Don Timorato no. 19; by Hector Ramírez, Ram, November 3 1944

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all images are from the stunning book La muerte en el impreso mexicano / Images of Death in Mexican Prints by Mercurio López Casillas [link]
for more prints see Doce Palabras excellent post 'Diálogo con los muertos' [link]
also see Morbid Anatonmy's 'La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death)' post on Joaquin Bolaños [link]

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Avant-garde's Letterhead

The following are from Elaine Lustig Cohen and Ellen Lupton's book Letters from the Avant Garde: Modern Graphic Design, most of which came from Elaine Lustig Cohen's personal collection. Elaine Lustig Cohen was an excellent artist/designer [more on that in a later post] who was married to the great Alvin Lustig. She and her second husband, author/publisher Arthur Cohen, began collecting letterhead in the 1970s for their Ex Libris gallery, but the letters rarely sold. Although collectors at the time tended to view them as unimportant, they offer an unique and personal perspective into many of the most important artistic movements of the early twentieth century.
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"A global network of avant-garde movements flourished during the first half of the twentieth century, connecting artist and designers across Europe and the United States. Written correspondence, presented on dramatically designed stationery, was a vital part of the infrastructure of this international community. Artist and designers translated concepts from painting, poetry, and architecture onto the commercial format of the letterhead, creating, in effect, ‘corporate identities’ for modernism. Stationery for Futurism, Dada, De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and other groups and institutions served as typographic manifestos for the avant-garde. Some of the works drew on the normative conventions of commercial stationery – often with a flash of irony – while others reflected new concepts of typographic rationality." - Ellen Lupton


Bruno Munari, Mazzotti. Italy, 1934


FT Martinetti, drawing by Giacomo Ball, Movimento Futurista. Rome, 1939


Fortunato Depero, Depero. Italy (Trentino), c. 1927 (Collection Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Monica)


Anonymous, Fernando Cervelli. Rome, 1932 (Collection Getty Center for the History of Arts and the Humanities, Santa Monica)


Tristan Tzara, MoUvEmEnT DADA. Paris c. 1918


Johannes Baader and Raoul Hausmann, Club Dada postcard. Berlin, c. 1919


Anonymous, Cause Le Surréalism (a Surrealist association). Paris, 1940s


Benjamin Péret. Paris (Collection W Michael Sheehe, New York)


Alexander Rodchenko, Dobrolet State Merchant Air Service. Moscow, 1923


El Lissitzky. Moscow, 1924


El Lissitzky, Vesc/Object/Gegenstand. Berlin, 1922 (from the collection of Hans Berndt, Germany)


Theo Van Doesburg, De Stijl NB postcard. Netherlands (The Hague and Leiden), 1920


Piet Zwart, Wij Nu Experimenteel Tooneel. The Hague, 1925


Piet Zwart, Laga-Compangnie. The Hague, 1922


Thon De Does, Reclame Ontwerper. Rotterdam, 1930


Josef Peeters, Het Overzicht postcard. Antwerp, 1923


Kurt Schwitters, Merz Werbezentrale envelope. Hanover, 1924


Joost Schmidt, Das Bauhaus in Dessau postcard. Dessau, 1925-26


Herbert Bayer, Ernst Kraus Glasmaler Weimar. Weimar, 1924 (Collection W Michael Sheehe, New York)


E McKnight Kauffer, Lumium Limited. London, 1935 (Collection Cooper-Hewitt, Nat. Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution)

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all images from Elaine Lustig Cohen and Ellen Lupton's book Letters from the Avant Garde: Modern Graphic Design [link]
also see the blog Billheads & Receipts [link]
David A Bontrager has a remarkable collection of trucking company letterhead [link]
letterhead at amassblog [link]
Insurance Letterhead and Covers [link]

 
*please cite or link when reposting*