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]

Today's letter is 'G'. Ginsberg to Cassady. 1948.

[c. late June 1948
New York City]

Dear Neal,

I spent 30 hours at Jack’s – we talked, drank bottles of beer, showed each other the latest manuscripts, and mooned about you – The great even was your letter – we had assumed your were in jail or something – I of course had fantasized your dead, more or less, and even suspected suicide some months back. Myself, this spring has been one of madness, much like yours. Frenzy, frenzy, creation that is worthless, drinking, school, etc. I’ve been working part time and so I had about an even stint of money, and bought a lot of records. What finally pulled me out – to name an external cause since they are the signs by which we mark season – was Jack’s novel. It is very great, beyond my wildest expectations. I never knew.

But I will let him tell you himself, and then fill in another time; I want to talk to you myself.

Now, I suppose I should congratulate you on your marriage, So OK Pops, everything you do is great. The idea of you with a child and a settled center of affection – shit, I don’t like to write prose because you have to say something simple & direct. My mind isn’t made up into anything but compete amused enthusiasm for you latest building

I wish I had your letter here, but it is just as well. I have an image in my mind of the vast realistic vision you spoke of and am struck with a joy at the thought of your possibilities – moving toward realization toward expression.

When (by implication of ideas or directly) I criticize you, you know and I know I do it our of tension and self justification on obvious levels, obvious ways, and it is hatred showing; so take it as that and if I seem unaware, and you are offended, point it out to me, so there will be no mistake.

However I am slowly coming back or (going forward) to where I can accept you for yourself (whatever that is) without hassles & tension & competition for power; and would be done with my “wrath” toward you and I believe by next season in NY we will be closer than last and I less returning and arbitrary. Is this not great gentility? Sweet fate.

ALLEN

P.S. I seem to have thrown out Jim Holmes's letters.