PM
February – March 1938
Walter Gropius, Herbert Matter
Leslie, Robert L. 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 4, No. 5: February / March 1938 ]. Slim 12mo. Stapled, photographically-printed stiff wrappers. 50 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Cover by Lee Brown Coye. Wrappers lightly worn, especially to the rear panel, but a very good copy.
This issue of PM features Essentials for Architectural Education by Walter Gropius, a 16-page letterpress insert designed by Herbert Matter. PM 42 was the first of three issues that devoted themselves to detailed analysis of the importance of the recently-shuttered Bauhaus.
In April 1937, Robert Leslie and Percy Seitlin announced their intent to devote the July or August PM to The Bauhaus Idea in America. The ambitious plan for Josef Albers to guest edit the contributions of Walter Gropius, Xanti Schawinsky, Grace Young, William Lescaze, and A. Lawrence Kocher was never realized. The Gropius contribution was published in the Feb./March 1938 issue and was followed by issues devoted to Herbert Bayer and the Bauhaus Typographic Tradition.
Also features a cover and insert by Lee Brown Coye, an artist who achieved fame as a preferred cover artist for Weird Tales.
5.5 x 7.75 digest with 42 [8] pages.
- Walter Gropius - Essentials for Architectural Education, a 16-page, photo-illustrated 2-color letterpress insert designed by Herbert Matter.
- The Work of Lee Brown Coye (designed by Lee Brown Coye)
- Editorial notes
- The Lore of Color by Fabir Birren
- A Preface of Words
- Philly PM Shorts
- Listing of Advertisements: Reliance Reproduction Co.; The Composing Room; Merganthaler - Linotype Co.; Wilbar Photo Engraving; Intertype; Flower Electrotypes Bauer Type Foundry.
Herbert Matter (1907 - 1984) studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Geneva and at the Academie Moderne in Paris with Fernand Leger and Ozenfant. He worked with A. M. Cassandre, Le Corbusier and Deberney & Peignot. He returned to Zurich in 1932 and designed posters for the Swiss National Tourist Office and Swiss resorts. He came to the US in 1936 and freelanced with Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and other magazines. From 1946 to 1966 he was design consultant with Knoll Associates. From 1952 to 1976 he was professor of photography at Yale University and from 1958 to 1968 he served as design consultant to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He was elected to the New York Art Director's Club Hall of Fame in 1977, received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in photography in 1980 and the AIGA medal in 1983.
Born and educated in Germany, Walter Gropius (1883-1969) belongs to the select group of architects that massively influenced the international development of modern architecture. As the founding director of the Bauhaus, Gropius made inestimable contributions to his field, to the point that knowing his work is crucial to understanding Modernism. His early buildings, such Fagus Boot-Last Factory and the Bauhaus Building in Dessau, with their use of glass and industrial features, are still indispensable points of reference. After his emigration to the United States, he influenced the education of architects there and became, along with Mies van der Rohe, a leading proponent of the International Style.
PM 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.