College Notebook

Saul Bass

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.
During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Among his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of a skyscraper in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.
Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the AT&T "bell" logo in 1969, as well as AT&T's "globe" logo in 1983 after the breakup of the Bell System. He also designed Continental Airlines' 1968 "jetstream" logo and United Airlines' 1974 "tulip" logo which became some of the most recognized airline industry logos of the era.

Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron

He was born Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron in Kharkov, Ukraine,[2] to French parents. As a young man, Cassandre moved to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Académie Julian. The popularity of posters as advertising afforded him an opportunity to work for a Parisian printing house. Inspired by cubism as well as surrealism, he earned a reputation with works such as Bûcheron (Woodcutter), a poster created for a cabinetmaker that won first prize at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.   

Cassandre became successful enough that with the help of partners he was able to set up his own advertising agency called Alliance Graphique, serving a wide variety of clients during the 1930s. He is perhaps best known for his posters advertising travel, for clients such as the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.

His creations for the Dubonnet wine company were among the first posters designed in a manner that allowed them to be seen by occupants in moving vehicles. His posters are memorable for their innovative graphic solutions and their frequent denotations to such painters as Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. In addition, he taught graphic design at the École des Arts Décoratifs and then at the École d'Art Graphique.

With typography an important part of poster design, the company created several new typeface styles. Cassandre developed Bifur in 1929, the sans serif Acier Noir in 1935, and in 1937 an all-purpose font called Peignot. In 1936, his works were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City which led to commissions from Harper's Bazaar to do cover designs.

With the onset of World War II, Cassandre served in the French army until the fall of France. His business long gone, he survived by creating stage sets and costumes for the theatre, something he had dabbled in during the 1930s. After the war, he continued this line of work while also returning to easel painting. In 1963, he designed the well-known Yves Saint-Laurent logo.

In his later years, Cassandre suffered from bouts of depression prior to his suicide in Paris in 1968.[2]

In 1985, Cassandre's son told his father's life story in a book titled A.M. Cassandre. The book, published in English by Rizzoli, is currently out of print.

Jackson Pollock

       

       Died. Jackson Pollock, 44, bearded shock trooper of modern painting, who spread his canvases on the floor, dribbled paint, sand and broken glass on them, smeared and scratched them, named them with numbers...; at the wheel of his convertible in a side road crack-up near East Hampton, N.Y. 

--Time Magazine 

August 20, 1956

       

In the twenty years between his arrival in New York City to study art and his premature death, Jackson Pollock had emerged as the most original painter in America--famous for his unprecedented physical involvement with the act of painting.

His friend and patron, the artist Alfonso Ossorio, described Pollock's artistic journey this way: "Here I saw a man who had both broken all the traditions of the past and unified them, who had gone beyond cubism, beyond Picasso and surrealism, beyond everything that had happened in art....his work expressed both action and contemplation." 

Edvard Munch

        

 The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was a pioneer of the Expressionist movement. Munch was born on 12 December 1863 in Løten in Hedmark county. The early deaths of his mother and eldest sister, his own sickliness, and his father’s religious inclinations made a lasting impression on him and gave rise to the sense of restless soul-searching that characterises his art.

Skrik (“The Scream”) – a breakthrough Expressionist work
Munch’s breakthrough Expressionist work The Scream came in 1893. The painting is still recognised as a powerful, primal depiction of existential angst. It is one of the most widely used motifs in the world, and has been reproduced on countless mugs, mouse pads, book covers and T-shirts.

The paintings Vampyr (“Vampire”), Madonna, Stemmen (“The Voice”), Aske (“Ashes”), and Livets dans (“The Dance of Life”) followed in succession, as did the major composition Kvinnen i tre stadier (“The Frieze of Life”) (1894). The latter is often described as a summary of Munch’s distinctive ambivalence toward women.

Sourced from 
http://www.norway-sy.org/aboutnorway/culture/masters/munch/
                                                                                              

                                         Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 

                                         (1571-1610)

 The Taking of Christ, 1602 Oil on canvas, 133.5 x 169.5 cm

^{On indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Jesuit Community, Leeson St., Dublin who acknowledge the kind generosity of the late Dr. Marie Lea-Wilson, 1992
L.14702}

Throughout history, very few artists have caused as radical a change in pictorial perceptions as Caravaggio. From the moment his talent was discovered, he swiftly became the most famous painter of his time in Italy, as well as a source of inspiration for hundreds of followers throughout Europe.

The Taking of Christ was painted by Caravaggio for the Roman Marquis Ciriaco Mattei at the end of 1602, when he was at the height of his fame. Breaking with the past, the artist offered a new visual rendering of the narrative of the Gospels, reducing the space around the three-quarter-length figures and avoiding any description of the setting. All emphasis is directed on the action perpetrated by Judas and the Temple guards on an overwhelmed Jesus, who offers no resistance to his destiny. The fleeing disciple in disarray on the left is St John the Evangelist. Only the moon lights the scene: although the man at the far side is holding a lantern, it is in reality an ineffective source. In that man's features Caravaggio portrayed himself, at the age of thirty one, as a passive spectator of the divine tragedy. 

an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque school of painting.

Sourced from Wikipeadia and http://www.nationalgallery.ie/Collection/Selected%20Highlights/selectedhighlights/Caravaggio.aspx

                                                                                                                                                                   

Keith Haring

Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney.

Upon graduation from high school in 1976, Haring enrolled in the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, a commercial arts school. He soon realized that he had little interest in becoming a commercial graphic artist and, after two semesters, dropped out. While in Pittsburgh, Haring continued to study and work on his own and in 1978 had a solo exhibition of his work at the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center.

Later that same year, Haring moved to New York City and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In New York, Haring found a thriving alternative art community that was developing outside the gallery and museum system, in the downtown streets, the subways and spaces in clubs and former dance halls. Here he became friends with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as the musicians, performance artists and graffiti writers that comprised the burgeoning art community. Haring was swept up in the energy and spirit of this scene and began to organize and participate in exhibitions and performances at Club 57 and other alternative venues.

In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy of his contemporaries, Haring was also inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri’s manifesto The Art Spirit, which asserted the fundamental independence of the artist. With these influences Haring was able to push his own youthful impulses toward a singular kind of graphic expression based on the primacy of the line. Also drawn to the public and participatory nature of Christo’s work, in particularRunning Fence, and by Andy Warhol’s unique fusion of art and life, Haring was determined to devote his career to creating a truly public art.

As a student at SVA, Haring experimented with performance, video, installation and collage, while always maintaining a strong commitment to drawing. In 1980, Haring found a highly effective medium that allowed him to communicate with the wider audience he desired, when he noticed the unused advertising panels covered with matte black paper in a subway station. He began to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels throughout the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring produced hundreds of these public drawings in rapid rhythmic lines, sometimes creating as many as forty “subway drawings” in one day. This seamless flow of images became familiar to New York commuters, who often would stop to engage the artist when they encountered him at work. The subway became, as Haring said, a “laboratory” for working out his ideas and experimenting with his simple lines.

Between 1980 and 1989, Haring achieved international recognition and participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His first solo exhibition in New York.was held at the Westbeth Painters Space in 1981.  In 1982, he made his Soho gallery debut with an immensely popular and highly acclaimed one-man exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. During this period, he also participated in renowned international survey exhibitions such as Documenta 7 in Kassel; the São Paulo Biennial; and the Whitney Biennial. Haring completed numerous public projects in the first half of the 80’s as well, ranging from an animation for the Spectacolor billboard in Times Square, designing sets and backdrops for theaters and clubs, developing watch designs for Swatch and an advertising campaign for Absolut vodka; and creating murals worldwide.

In April 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a retail store in Soho selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets bearing his images. Haring considered the shop to be an extension of his work and painted the entire interior of the store in an abstract black on white mural, creating a striking and unique retail environment. The shop was intended to allow people greater access to his work, which was now readily available on products at a low cost. The shop received criticism from many in the art world, however Haring remained committed to his desire to make his artwork available to as wide an audience as possible, and received strong support for his project from friends, fans and mentors including Andy Warhol.

Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his time to public works, which often carried social messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. The now famous Crack is Wack mural of 1986 has become a landmark along New York’s FDR Drive. Other projects include; a mural created for the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986, on which Haring worked with 900 children; a mural on the exterior of Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris, France in 1987; and a mural painted on the western side of the Berlin Wall three years before its fall. Haring also held drawing workshops for children in schools and museums in New York, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo and Bordeaux, and produced imagery for many literacy programs and other public service campaigns.

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In 1989, he established the Keith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS.

During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring’s work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. In 1986 alone, he was the subject of more than 40 newspaper and magazine articles. He was highly sought after to participate in collaborative projects ,and worked with artists and performers as diverse as Madonna, Grace Jones, Bill T. Jones, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century.

Keith Haring died of AIDS related complications at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990. A memorial service was held on May 4, 1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, with over 1,000 people in attendance.

Since his death, Haring has been the subject of several international retrospectives. The work of Keith Haring can be seen today in the exhibitions and collections of major museums around the world.
                                 Sourced from http://www.haring.com/about_haring/bio/index.html

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

was born in aachen, germany, on march 27, 1886. 

after having trained with his father, a master stonemason. 

at 19 he moved to berlin, where he worked for bruno paul,

the art nouveau architect and furniture designer. 

at 20 he received his first independent commission, 

to plan a house for a philosopher (alois riehl). 

in 1908 he began working for the architect 

peter behrens. he studied the architecture of the 

prussian karl friedrich schinkel and frank lloyd wright.

he opened his own office in berlin in 1912,

and married in 1913.

---

after world war I, he began studying the skyscraper 

and designed two innovative steel-framed towers 

encased in glass. one of them was the friedrichstrasse 

skyscraper, designed in 1921 for a competition. 

it was never built, although it drew critical praise and 

foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the late 40s and 50s.

---

in 1921, when his marriage ended, he changed 

his name, adding the dutch 'van der' and his mother’s 

maiden name, 'rohe': ludwig mies became ludwig mies 

van der rohe.

---

in the 20’s he was active in a number of the berlin 

avant-garde circles ( the magazine 'G' and organizations such 

as the 'novembergruppe', 'zehner ring', and 'arbeitsrat für kunst')

that supported modern art and architecture along with artists 

like hans richter, el lissitzky, and theo van doesburg, 

among others. major contributions to the architectural 

philosophies of the late 1920s and 1930s he made as 

artistic director of the werkbund-sponsored weissenhof 

project, a model housing colony in stuttgart. 

the modern apartments and houses were designed by 

leading european architects, including a block by mies.

---

in 1927 he designed one of his most famous buildings, 

/ the german pavilion at the international exposition in barcelona 

in 1929. this small hall, known as the barcelona

pavilion (for which he also designed the famous chrome 

and leather 'barcelona chair'), had a flat roof supported by 

columns. the pavilion’s internal walls, made of glass and marble, 

could be moved around as they did not support the structure. 

the concept of fluid space with a seamless flow between 

indoors and outdoors was further explored in other projects 

he designed for decades to come.

mies began working with lilly reich, who remained his 

collaborator and companion for more than ten years. 

---

in 1930, mies met new york architect philip johnson, 

who included several of his projects in

MoMA’s first architecture exhibition held in 1932, 'modern

architecture: international exhibition', thanks to which 

mies’s work began to be known in the united states.

---

in the30s, none of his designs were built due to the 

sweeping economic and political changes overtaking 

germany. he was director of the bauhaus school from 

1930 until its disbandment in 1933, shut down under 

pressure from the new nazi government. 

he moved to the united states in 1937. 

from 1938 to 1958 he was head of the architecture 

department at the armour institute of technology in 

chicago, later renamed the illinois institute of technology. 

in the 40s, was asked to design a new campus for the 

school, a project in which he continued to refine his 

steel-and-glass style. he had also formed a new relationship 

with chicago artist lora marx that would last for the rest of his 

life.

---

by 1944, he had become an american citizen and was 

well established professionally. 

in this period he designed one of his most famous 

buildings, a small weekend retreat outside chicago,

a transparent box framed by eight exterior steel 

columns. / the ‘farnsworth house’ is one of the most 

radically minimalist houses ever designed. 

its interior, a single room, is subdivided by partitions 

and completely enclosed in glass.

---

in the 50s he continued to develop this concept of open, 

flexible space on a much larger scale:

in 1953, he developed the convention hall, innovative was 

the structural system that spanned large distances.

during this period he also realized his dream of building a 

glass skyscraper.

/ the ' twin towers' in chicago were completed in 1951, followed

by other high-rises in chicago, new york, detroit, toronto...

culminating in 1954 with / the 'seagram' building in new york, 

hailed as a masterpiece of skyscraper design. 

---

for his career he achieved in 1959 the 

'orden pour le merite' (germany) and in 1963 the 

'presidential medal of freedom' (USA).

---

in 1962, his career came full-circle when he was invited to 

design the 'new national gallery' in berlin. 

his design for this building achieved his long-held vision of 

an exposed steel structure that directly connected interior 

space to the landscape. 

he returned to berlin several times while the gallery was under 

construction, but was unable to attend the opening in 1968.

he died in chicago on august 17, 1969. 

Sourced from

http://www.designboom.com/portrait/mies/bg.html