IVAN CHERMAYEFF: WORKS AND PROCESS
Ivan Chermayeff [Designer]
Ivan Chermayeff [Designer]: IVAN CHERMAYEFF: WORKS AND PROCESS. Andover, MA: The Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, 1984. Original impression. 24 x 34.5 - inch [60.9 x 87.6 cm] trim size image printed via offset lithography on a semi-gloss sheet. Light handling wear to edges, otherwise a fine, fresh example.
24 x 34.5 - inch [60.9 x 87.6 cm] poster designed by Ivan Chermayeff for an Exhibition at The Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy from April 27 to June 17, 1984 utilizing his formidable collage skills. Having made an ongoing collection out of the remnants of the past, Chermayeff assembles abstract shapes and discarded textures to make contemporary works on paper that recall Modernism, yet look to the future of man-made materials and technology. The mixed media collages betray the complexity and effort that Chermayeff has invested in the minimal, playful images that result. Emerging from shapes and colors come faces and expressions, as well as titles that make a play on words and offer humor in the midst of clean and stoic design elements.
When Ivan Chermayeff arrived at Harvard in the early 1950’s he presented the Dean of Undergraduate Studies with an unusual request. Rather than majoring in any particular subject, Chermayeff wanted to major in professors. A man of obvious perception, the Dean gave his approval. As a result, Chermayeff’s program of study was a crazy-quilt of courses, semantics and anthropology and history and what-have-you, but each course was taught by an interesting, exciting or provocative professor. Here is an early clue to what Chermayeff himself calls his “pack rat” personality, what writer and editor Russell Lynes more charitably calls his “magpie” approach to life. His partner Tom Geismar sees him from quite another angle: “Ivan combines the sensitivities of the artist with the decisiveness of the corporation executive. This unusual combination is fueled by an extraordinary energy level.”
Ivan Chermayeff’s work as a designer, painter, and illustrator has been exhibited throughout the U. S., Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Japan, and has received numerous awards from the Type Directors Club, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Society of Illustrators, and the Art Directors Club of New York. In 1981, Chermayeff received the President’s Fellow Award from the Rhode Island School of Design and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Portland School of Arts. He was named to the Art Directors Club of New York Hall of Fame in 1982.
In 1991, Chermayeff received a Doctorate in Fine Arts (Honorary) from both the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and The University of the Arts (Philadelphia). Chermayeff has received the title Royal Designer for Industry from the British Royal Society of Arts and Commerce (RDI Hon) in recognition of his achievements in graphic design.
Ivan Chermayeff is a past president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and former vice president of the Yale Arts Association. He was a trustee of The Museum of Modern Art in New York for 20 years and was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Design Conference in Aspen from 1967 to 1998. He also has been a National Trustee of the Smithsonian Institution.
Chermayeff is a principal with Tom Geismar and Sagi Haviv in their firm, Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, specializing in identity design, exhibition design, motion graphics, and art in architecture.