ADVERTISING ARTS
September 1932
Frederick C. Kendall [Editor]
Frederick C. Kendall [Editor]: ADVERTISING ARTS. New York: Advertising and Selling Publishing Co., September 1932. Original edition. Letterpressed thick perfect bound wrappers. 40 pp. Multiple paper stocks and printing effects throughout. Text and elaborately-produced advertisements. Cover by Boris Artzybasheff. Upper extreme fore-corner of rear wrapper torn away, corners bumped, a few closed edge tears to the dust-tanned wrappers, just a good copy. Rare.
8.5 x 11.5 perfect bound magazine with 40 pages of text and advertisements. "Devoted to the design of advertising, the creation of printing, and the styling of merchandise and packages." -- the Publishers.
Advertising Arts promulgated a progressive design approach (and style) unique to the United States during the early Thirties, called Streamline. Unlike the elegant austerity of the Bauhaus, where economy and simplicity were paramount, Streamline was a uniquely American futuristic mannerism based on sleek aerodynamic design born of science and technology. Planes, trains and cars were given the swooped-back appearance that both symbolized and physically accelerated speed. Consequently, type and image were designed to echo that sensibility, the result being that the airbrush became the medium of choice and all futuristic traits, be they practical or symbolic, were encouraged. The clarion call was to "Make it Modern" -- and "it " was anything that could be designed. – Steven Heller
- Insert composed and printed by John Henry Nash.
- Color Photograph by Anton Bruehl.
- The Means To Color Photography by Gordon M. Wilbur. Photography by Anton Bruehl.
- Three Versions of a Trade-Mark Designed by F. E. Kliem.
- Minority Report by a New York Agency Executive.
- Mr. Tilly and Miss Du Pont. Soap Portraiture by Lester Gaba.
- Aerial View of Central Philadelphia Reproduced in Aquatone.
- Yachts . . . a Story of Design by Walter B. Geohegan. Full-Page Gravure Photography by Anton Bruehl and Margaret Bourke-White.
- A New Technique—with Photographs by Charles Garner.
- Resizes.
- The Gentle Art Of Cropping by a Reader, an Art Director and a Photographer. Photography by Dr. Paul Wolfflazarnick Studio, Edward Quigley, Jeanette Griffith, Adams Studio, Hi Williams.
- Designing a Salt Package by Joseph Sinel.
- View Of Rockefeller Center From Fifith Avenue: Full-Page Architectural Rendering.
- Jean Dupas by Amos Stote. Four pages and four black and white illustrations.
Joseph Claude Sinel [1889 – 1975] was born in Auckland, New Zealand where his father ran a stevedoring operation. He attended the Elam School of Art, then started work as an apprentice in the art department of Wilson & Horton Lithographers, working at the New Zealand Herald from 1904-1909 and studying under Harry Wallace. After a stint in England, he returned to New Zealand and Australia working as a freelance designer, then moved to San Francisco in 1918, where he first worked in advertising, then in 1923 started his own industrial design company in New York City. In 1936, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Sinel claimed to have designed everything from "ads to andirons and automobiles, from beer bottles to book covers, from hammers to hearing aids, from labels and letterheads to packages and pickle jars, from textiles and telephone books to toasters, typewriters and trucks." Although he is perhaps best remembered for his designs of industrial scales, typewriters, and calculators, he also designed trademarks for businesses such as the Art Institute of Chicago, created book jackets for Doubleday, Knopf, and Random House, and for many years designed publications for Mills College. He taught design in a number of schools in the United States, and in 1955 became one of the fourteen founders of the American Society of Industrial Designers (which later merged with other organizations to form the Industrial Designers Society of America).
Sinel is sometimes said to have coined the term "industrial design" around the 1920s in the USA. Sinel denied the paternity of this term in an interview in 1969. "... that's the same time [1920] that I was injecting myself into the industrial design field, of which it's claimed (and I'm in several of the books where they claim) that I was the first one, and they even say that I invented the name. I'm sure I didn't do that. I don't know where it originated and I don't know where I got hold of it."
Jean Theodore Dupas [1882 – 1964] was a designer, poster artist, and decorator, but above all, he is the painter most closely associated with the Art Deco period. Dupas was part of the Bordeaux School, which included other renowned artists, such as Robert Eugene Pougheon, René Buthaud, Jean Gabriel Domergue, Raphael Delorme, and his close friend and collaborator, Alfred Janniot.
In 1910, he won the Prix de Rome, and spent two years in Italy. It was here that he completed "Le Danse", a study for a larger painting titled, "Les Pigeons Blanc" (The White Pigeons). This was Dupas' final painting in Rome, and marked the end of his four year residence at the Villa Medici. This painting was presented in 1922 at the Salon des Artistes Français, where it was awarded the gold medal. It is thought that this painting established Dupas as a successful painter. According to Romain Lefebvre, this work was inspired by Ingres' "Turkish Bath", and this is the first example of an Art Deco painting "with the indicative stylization of the figures, almost sculptural, with their long necks and bent wrists forming large arabesque movement." The actual painting, "Les Pigeons Blanc" (The White Pigeons) has been lost and "Le Danse" is the only remaining evidence of that masterpiece.
One of Dupas' earliest commissions came from the Bordeaux industrialist Henri Frugès in 1912. Frugès was in the process of renovating his new townhouse, which he called the "Palais Idéal", and was looking for artists with a modern vision to help him turn his home into a showcase for the finest in contemporary art. He employed Daum Freres, Jean Dunand, Edgar Brandt, René Buthaud and, of course, Dupas to help him make his vision a reality.
In 1925 Dupas participated in one of the most heralded exhibition of all time, the Grand Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, from which derives the term Art Deco. At this show, he exhibited "Les Perruches", not only one of his most famous paintings, but perhaps also one of the defining paintings of his career and perhaps the most well-known of the Art Deco movement. This painting was part of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann's Hotel d'un Collectionneur. This was not the first time that Ruhlmann collaborated on a project with Dupas, and certainly not the last.
Dupas is also known for decorating the interiors of the Île-de-France and the Liberté, as well as the SS Normandie, in 1934, for which he created fabulous verre eglomisé panels for the Grand Salon. Portions of this mural are now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and also at the Forbes Galleries in New York.
The "Dupas look" dominates advertising and commercial art throughout the whole of the Art Moderne period. In fact, Dupas did a great quantity of posters and other advertising work. His work also frequently appeared in fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and he also created a catalogue for the furrier Max, in 1927, which is considered to be a "masterpiece of print advertising." It is easy to recognize a "Dupas woman" - the hair is cropped, her eyes are almond shaped, the mouth is small but full, and her neck is always elongated.