PM
November 1936
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors] PM [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 3, No. 3: November 1936. Original edition. 16mo. Printed stapled wrappers. 32 pp. Illustrated articles and trade advertisements. Cover is a Surrealist 4 color process photo by Paul Outerbridge, with typography by Gustav Jensen. Wrappers lightly spotted and worn, but a very good copy.
5.5 x 7.75 saddle stitched digest with 32 pages of articles and advertising.
Contents: Facts about Color Photography; Some Notes on Printing Design; Theodore Scheel; The ABC of linoleum Blocks; Hebrew Printing in Venice; Editorial Notes; The Artist's Representatives' League; Functional Color - by Faber Birren; PM Shorts mentions Herbert Matter; Douglas C. McMurtrie; Raymond M. Martin; Benjamin Lewis; Ruth Gerth; Joseph Sinel ; Fred Breen; Robert Olufers; Denna Simpson; Helen Dryden.; Linotype Keepsake.
Advertisements for the Merganthaler Linotype Co.; The Composing Room; Reliance Reproduction Co.; Intertype Corp.; Wilbar Photoengraving; R. K. S. Advertising/Printing; Flower Electrotypes; Ludlow Typograph Co.
Paul Outerbridge, Jr. (1896 - 1958) was an American photographer noted for early use and experiments in color photography. Outerbridge was a fashion and commercial photographer, an early pioneer and teacher of color photography, and an artist who created erotic nudes photographs that could not be exhibited in his lifetime.
Outerbridge, while still in his teens, worked as an illustrator and theatrical designer designing stage settings and lighting schemes. After an accident caused his discharge from the Royal Canadian Naval Air Service, in 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Army where he did his first photography work. In 1921, Outerbridge enrolled in the Clarence H. White school of photography at Columbia University. Within a year his work began being reproduced in Vanity Fair and Vogue magazine.
In London, in 1925, the Royal Photographic Society invited Outerbridge to exhibit in a one-man show. Outerbridge then traveled to Paris and became friends with surrealist artists, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Berenice Abbott. In Paris, Outerbridge did a layout for the French Vogue magazine, met and worked with Edward Steichen, and built the largest, most completely equipped advertising photography studio of the times. In 1929, 12 of Outerbridge's photographs were included in the prestigious, German Film und Foto exhibition.
Returning to New York in 1929, Outerbridge opened a studio doing commercial and artistic work and began writing a monthly column on color photography for the U.S. Camera Magazine. Outerbridge became known for the high quality of his color illustrations, which were done in those years by means of an extremely complex tri-color carbro process. In 1937, Outerbridge's photographs were included in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and, in 1940, Outerbridge published his seminal book, Photographing in Color, using high quality illustrations to explain his techniques.
A scandal over his erotic photography, led to Outerbridge retiring as a commercial photographer and moving to Hollywood in 1943. Despite the controversy, Outerbridge continued to contribute photo stories to magazines and write his monthly column. In 1945, he married fashion designer Lois Weir and worked in their joint fashion company, Lois-Paul Originals. He died of lung cancer in 1958. One year after his death, the Smithsonian Institution staged a one-man show of Outerbridge's photographs. Although his reputation has faded, revivals of Outerbridge's photography in 1970s and 1990s has periodically brought him into contemporary public knowledge.
P-M magazine was the leading voice of the U. S. Graphic Arts Industry from its inception in 1934 to its end in 1942 (then called AD). As a publication produced by and for professionals, it spotlighted cutting-edge production technology and the highest possible quality reproduction techniques (from engraving to plates). PM and A-D also championed the Modern movement by showcasing work from the vanguard of the European Avant-Garde well before this type of work was known to a wide audience.