EVERYDAY ART QUARTERLY No. 14
A Guide to Well Designed Products
Hilde Reiss [Editor], John Szarkowski [Staff Photographer]
Hilde Reiss [Editor], John Szarkowski [Staff photographer]: EVERYDAY ART QUARTERLY [A Guide to Well Designed Products]. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center; Issue No. 14, Spring 1950. First Edition. Slim quarto. Stapled wrappers. 20 pp. Illustrated articles and minimal advertising. Interior unmarked and very clean. A very influential publication and quite uncommon. A very good copy.
8.5 x 11 softcover magazine with 20 pages and 30 black and white images. This issue of Everyday Art Quarterly offers a magnificent snapshot of the blossoming modern movement after World War II. A very desirable, truly amazing vintage publication in terms of form and content: high quality printing and clean, functional design and typography and excellent photographic reproduction make this a spectacular addition to a midcentury design collection. Highly recommended.
Contents:
- USEFUL OBJECTS: inexpensive gift items from Finland Ceramics, Ekenas, Reijmyre, Kimbel Glass, Anchor Hocking, Sterling Glass, Eva Zeisel, Kromex and more. The Walker Art Center’s Annual Useful Objects Show was patterned after the Good Design shows represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart with the objective to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers.
- ALVIN LUSTIG -- HIS WORK: By the time he died at the age of forty in 1955, Alvin Lustig had already introduced principles of Modern art to graphic design that have had a long-term influence on contemporary practice. He was in the vanguard of a relatively small group who fervently, indeed religiously, believed in the curative power of good design when applied to all aspects of American life. He was a generalist, and yet in the specific media in which he excelled he established standards that are viable today. An early 4-page tribute with 8 black and white examples.
- Product Review: Bon Hop Blocks by Richard Hopkins; Nesting Tables by Joseph Carreiro; Shred-O-Mat by Rival manufacturing and Electric Clocks by George Nelson for the Howard Miller Clock Company.
- Everyday Art in the Magazines: articles about modern design published in such magazines as Arts & Architecture, Interiors, Progressive Architecture and others.
- Addresses: Contact information for all of the designers and manufacturers profiled in this issue.
"By the time he died at the age of forty in 1955, [Lustig] had already introduced principles of Modern art to graphic design that have had a long-term influence on contemporary practice. He was in the vanguard of a relatively small group who fervently, indeed religiously, believed in the curative power of good design when applied to all aspects of American life. He was a generalist, and yet in the specific media in which he excelled he established standards that are viable today.
"Lustig created monuments of ingenuity and objects of aesthetic pleasure. Whereas graphic design history is replete with artifacts that define certain disciplines and are also works of art, for a design to be so considered it must overcome the vicissitudes of fashion and be accepted as an integral part of the visual language." -- Steven Heller
Everyday Art Quarterly was published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1958, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.