NOEL MARTIN: A DESIGNER IN THE MIDWEST
Edward H. Dwight
Edward H. Dwight: NOEL MARTIN: A DESIGNER IN THE MIDWEST. Cincinnati: The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1954. Slim quarto. Kromekote printed stapled wrappers. 16 pp. Color illustrations and classic modern design throughout. Kromekote wrappers lightly rubbed and marked, spine stressed, with a small chip to rear panel lower corner, but a very good copy.
8.5 x 11 saddle-stitiched 16-page exhibition catalog with examples of Noel martin's graphic design work for the Museum of Modern Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum and other clients. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, from September 10 to October 12, 1954.
The cover design was really ahead of its time for 1954: an engraved negative photogram with Day-glo ink on Champion Kromekote produces an amazing effect.
Noel Martin was a renown self-taught typographer and designer who studied drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He later became an instructor there and was the long-time designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as a prolific free-lance designer. Martin was celebrated for modernizing museum graphics and industrial trade catalogs. In 1953, he was featured in MoMA's landmark design exhibition, Four American Designers, along with Herbert Bayer, Leo Lionni, and Ben Shahn. His spiral-bound self-promotional piece, Identity Programs, presents some of his iconic minimalist logos.
From Steven Heller's New York Times Obituary [February 27, 2009]: " With the ubiquitous branding and expert merchandizing of museums today, it is easy to forget that graphic design was once a low priority for them. In 1947, when Mr. Martin became the Cincinnati Art Museum's first graphic designer, most museum publications were staid and musty.
"Mr. Martin maintained that contemporary typographic design, as practiced by the European Modernists, would enhance these documents and make art, particularly abstract art, more accessible and more appealing to younger museumgoers. He introduced a distinct blend of classical and modern typography to the museum's exhibition catalogs.
"Allon Schoener, a freelance museum curator and friend, said that Mr. Martin, first at the Cincinnati Art Museum and later at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, "created a style which has been emulated by most other American museums during the last 40 years."
Noel Martin was born on April 19, 1922, in Syracuse, Ohio. When he was a child, his family moved to Cincinnati, where he spent the remainder of his life. He studied painting, drawing and print- making at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1939-1941 and 1945-1947, between which he married his wife, Coletta, and served in the military. During World War II he served in a camouflage unit in the Army Air Force, where he made catalogs and brochures. While making educational film strips for the Army in New York he was exposed to modern art for the first time, which later influenced his work. He trained himself in the art of typography and graphic design. He became a designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1947 and in 1949 began offering his services as a free-lance designer and art director to a variety of firms.
In 1951 he began teaching design and commercial art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and worked there until 1957. In 1953 he was one of four designers featured in the Four American Designers exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, by which time he'd already become nationally known. He received the Art Director's Medal in Philadelphia in 1957.
In 1958 he redesigned The New Republic from cover to cover. Martin (1959) said, "Good typography for magazines is generally typography which is free of animation and the necessary tricks of advertising, and is functional1." He used typeface Palatino and uncluttered the cover, making sure to leave white space throughout the publication. In 1959, he wrote several articles on the relationship between modern art and graphic design.
He continued designing for the Cincinnati Art Museum throughout his life. He designed numerous booklets, books, calendars, catalogs, corporate logos, flyers, magazines, newsletters, stationary and posters throughout the following decades. Some of the firms and institutions he designed for on a free-lance basis include Champion Paper Company, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Federated Department Stores, General Electric, LeBlond Ltd., Standard Oil Company, The United Fine Arts Fund, University of Cincinnati, and Xomox Corporation. He also designed corporate logos for institutions, such as Advance Mortgage Corporation, the Contemporary Arts Center, and Black Clawson, most of which were minimalist in nature.
He was featured in various editions of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Graphic Art and Who's Who in Advertising. He was featured in numerous exhibits locally, nationally, and internationally. He wrote several articles and gave numerous lectures throughout his career. He dies of leukemia on February 23, 2009.