ELECTRONICS — A NEW SCIENCE FOR A NEW WORLD
Herbert Bayer [Designer]
Schenectady: General Electric Co. [Electronic Division], 1942. Original edition. Oblong quarto. Saddle-stitched booklet in photographically illustrated wrappers. 32 pp. Photography, photomontage and illustrations. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Rear panel foxed with a few faint pencil notations partially erased. Interior bright and fine, so a very good or better copy. Rare.
11 x 8.25 saddle-stitched 32-page booklet printed in six-color letterpress throughout with magnificent original examples of painting, photography, photomontage, illustration and typography. An early American tour-de-force by Bauhaus master and recent emigrant Bayer. Awarded the 1943 ADC award for distinctive merit; Art directed by Leo Lionni for N. W. Ayer and Sons. [The Art Directors Club: 22ND ANNUAL OF ADVERTISING ART. NYC: Watson-Guptill, 1943. Page 38].
Bayer and Lionni truly outdid themselves with this assignment for General Electrics -- a true synthesis of artistic vision in the service of commerce. Bayer produced color artwork for every page, employing his formidable arsenal: painting, photography, photomontage, illustration and typography. General Electric wanted a brochure to prepare consumers for the near-future when every American would be able to personally benefit from the harnessing of electricity and its inevitable outcome: the birth of the electronics industry.
"Only within the last two generations has science discovered how to control electrons by the vacuum tube, and put them to work for the good of mankind."
Herbert Bayer (Austrian American, 1900 – 1985) is one of the individuals most closely identified with the famous Bauhaus program in Weimar, Germany. Together with Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Wassily Kandinsky, Bayer helped shape a philosophy of functional design that extended across disciplines ranging from architecture to typography and graphic design. Endowed with enormous talent and energy, Bayer went on to produce an impressive body of work, including freelance graphics commissions, Modernist exhibition design, corporate identity programs, and architecture and environmental design.
He was born in Haag, Austria, and apprenticed in a local architectural design and graphic arts studio. By 1920 he was in Germany and a year later enrolled in a recently established, state-funded school of design called the Bauhaus. Then located in Weimar, the Bauhaus came to represent an almost utopian ideal that "modern art and architecture must be responsive to the needs and influence of the modern industrial world and that good designs must pass the test of both aesthetic standards and sound engineering."
Though Bayer came to the Bauhaus as a student, he stayed on to become one of its most prominent faculty members. His design for a new Sans-serif type called Universal helped to define the Bauhaus aesthetic.
He left in 1928 and moved to Berlin where he opened a graphic design firm whose clients included the trend-setting magazine Vogue. During this period, he also created or art-directed a number of memorable exhibitions. As with other designers of his generation, Bayer became alarmed over the increasingly repressive political situation in Germany and finally left in 1938 for New York. Within a short period of time, he was well-established as a designer and, among other achievements, had organized a comprehensive exhibition at MoMA on the early Bauhaus years. He also formed important connections with the publishers of Life and Fortune magazines, General Electric, and Container Corporation of America. CCA's chief executive, Walter Paepcke, became an important patron of Bayer's in the years to come, beginning with an invitation to move to Aspen, Colorado, to become a design consultant for the company. Bayer also supervised the architectural design of the new Aspen Institute, and then many of its program graphics. Bayer remained in Aspen until 1974, when he moved to California. There he worked on various environmental projects until his death in 1985.
Leo Lionni (Dutch American, 1910 – 1999) was born in Amsterdam and trained as an economist in Italy from 1931 - 1935. He began his career in graphic design in 1933 as an art director for the Italian food supplier Motta. Lionni emigrated to the United States in 1939 and began work as an Art Director for N. W. Ayer and Sons advertising agency in Philadelphia, where he coined the slogan "never underestimate the power of a woman. Lionni stayed with Ayer until 1947. In 1949 he succeeded Will Burtin as Art Director of Fortune magazine. At Fortune he developed his distinctive visual style utilizing photography and illustration. His work with Bayer for GE certainly helped move Lionni towards the visual identity he perfected in later years.