PM: Fifth Year: Volume 4, No. 9 to Volume 5, No. 2
October – November 1938 to August – September 1939
An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]
Six issues of PM complete with original covers and all inserts bound into a single decorated cloth volume by the craftsmen at the Composing Room in an edition of 400 copies. Blue cloth boards with leather gilt spine labels. Printed Publishers Index for Volume 5 bound in. Blue spine cloth slightly darkened and all four tips nudged. Textblock lightly dust spotted. All six bound issues in fine condition in a very good or better Publishers binding.
A unique opportunity of own a collection of PM when it was becoming the leading journal for American Graphic Design and a clarion for the Avant-Garde Immigration to the United States. Includes the FIRST article to acknowledge Paul Rand's professional output
[Paul Rand] 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 4, No. 9: October-November 1938]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Stitched and perfect-bound printed thick wrappers. 83 [13] pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. The cover is a 4-color offset design by the young up-and-comer Paul Rand. You may have heard of him. This issue of PM rates a singular high point in the history of American Graphic design due to its spotlighting of Paul Rand -- this is the FIRST article to acknowledge Rand's professional output. Rand designed the wraparound cover as well as the 16-page letterpressed insert that shows the early development of the modern american master.
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 4, No. 10: December-January 1938-1939]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. 9-color split fountain silkscreen wraparound wrappers by Leo Rackow. 64 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements.
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 4, No. 11: February-March 1939]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Thick printed spiral bound wrappers. 72 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Original cover by Charles Egri.
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 4, No. 12: April-May 1939]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Two-color photo ofset perfect bound and sewn wrappers. 102 [16] pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Wraparound cover design by Featured Artist Charles Dean.
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 5, No. 1: June-July 1939]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Thick printed wrappers with a 4-color offset wraparound design by Desha Taksa. 52 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements.
5.5 x 7.75 perfect-bound Digest with 52 pages of articles and advertisements including A New Printing Type - Caledonia: Caledonia Insert- typography by W. A. Dwiggins; Desha Taksa: 16-page illustrated article on the Yugoslavian artist who studied at the Academy in Zagreb. She was a member of the American Artists Professional League and the Greenwich Soiety of Art. Her work has been exhibited at the American Artists Professional league, Art Director’s Club, Arden Gallery, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art and the Morgan Library in New Haven Connecticut.
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 5, No. 2: August-September 1939]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Perfect-bound yapped wrappers with hand stenciled (pochoir), steel die stamped lettering; and cold stamped illustration area. 100 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements.
[6] 5.5 x 7.75 volumes with 502 pages of articles and trade advertisements. Issue highlights include:
- Paul Rand A16-page letterpressed insert that shows the early development of the modern American Master, plus design of the wraparound cover, widely recognized as one of the iconic images of 20th-century American Graphic Design, as has been reproduced countless times in design histories/anthologies. A classic piece of original ephemera from the most influential graphic designer of all time. The Kenilworth Press was responsible for the printing of the cover and the 16-page Rand insert, and their superlative efforts were rewarded by their full-page ad being designed by Rand himself.
- Silkscreen and Its Application in Modern DisplaySixteen-page stunning expose on the WPA-inspired medium of silkscreen printing!
- Susanne Suba emigrated to the United States from Hungary after World War 1. She attended Friends School in Brooklyn and majored in illustration at Pratt Institute. She moved to Chicago to begin illustrating books, many written by her husband Russell McCracken. Her first illustrated book was chosen for the AIGA Fifty Books of the Year. Her illustration work has been exhibited in the Boston Museum, the Art Director's Club, Chicago, the Art Director's Club, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum and other smaller galleries.
- Charles Egri: An 8-page insert designed by Charles Egri.
- Kurt H. Volk: A 16-page insert layout by A. G. Hoffman. From “Dr. Leslie & The Composing Room,” an on-line MFA Thesis Project by Erin K. Malone, RIT, 1994: "Kurt Hans Volk was originally from Germany. He worked many years at N. W. Ayers in Philadelphia before starting his own typographic firm in 1927. He widely lectured on advertising typography and authored Using Type Correctly. He was a consultant to the Merganthaler Linotype Company for several years. He was best known for a series of art keepsakes and limited edition books distributed to friends at Christmas. These special edition books are in a special collection at the New York Public Library.”
- Charles Dean by Walter P. Suter: 16-page insert designed by Dean. Charles Dean was a leading graphic designer of trademarks, brochures, packaging and booklets, as well as an artist in his own right. Dean emigrated to the US in 1925. He was first in San Francisco and then in Chicago. In Chicago he worked for Kuppenheimers, designing packagingand other materials. He relocated to New York and studied at the Art Student's League and the American and National Academies of Design. After a year studying in Europe he returned to New York and worked for Newell-Emmett advertising and spent evenings studying at NYU and the Beaux Arts School of Design. He designed trademarks, brochures, packaging and booklets.
- Society of Illustrators 1939 Annual Exhibition: design by Lucien Bernhard; portfolio of approximately 58 pages contains such luminaries as Peter Arno, Lucian Burnhard, Abner Dean, Norman Rockwell, with a Charles Dana Gibson cover.
- <bA Caledonia promotional Insert with typography by W. A. Dwiggins.</b
- Desha Taksa: A16-page illustrated article on the Yugoslavian artist who studied at the Academy in Zagreb. She was a member of the American Artists Professional League and the Greenwich Soiety of Art. Her work has been exhibited at the American Artists Professional league, Art Director’s Club, Arden Gallery, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art and the Morgan Library in New Haven Connecticut. Desha Taksa (b. 1914) was originally from Yugoslavia and studied at the Academy in Zagreb. She was a member of the American Artists Professional League and the Greenwich Society of Art. She was the illustrator of Adventures in Monochrome and contributed to several publications of the period.
- Dr. M.F. Agha's American Decade An elaborate special section written and designed by the following artists/designers/publishers etc.: Cipe Pineles, Walter Geohegan, Frank Crowninshield, Pierre Brissaud, Conde Nast, William Golden, Horst, Tobias Moss, William Fink, Ludwig Bemelmans, Dora Abrahams, Francis Brennan, William Harris, Sherman H. Raveson, J. Walter Flynn, Tom Maloney, Witold Gordon, Harry Brown, and Arthur Weiser. M. F. Agha (1896 - 1978) was educated in Kiev and Paris. After working for Vogue in Berlin he was brought to the US in 1929 by publisher Condé Nast. Agha proved himself with Vogue magazine by showing that the art director was an integral part of the editorial process and was soon given the art directorship of Vanity Fair and House and Garden as well. He was a pioneer with the use of sans serif typefaces, duotones, full color photographs and bleed images. Agha led the field in the use of leading photographers of his day. Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Edward Weston, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and many others. He also brought his readers the works of Masters like Matisse, Derain and Picasso years before other American magazines. He left Condé Nast Publications in 1943 (after Nast died) and became a successful freelance consultant. He served as President of the AIGA from 1953-1955 and was awarded the AIGA Gold medal in 1957. His contributions to the field of magazine publishing changed the nature of magazine design and redefined the role of the designer and art director.
- A Design Student's Guide To The 1939 New York World's Fair:Original bound in 36-page letterpress insert designed by Paul Rand. A student guide devoted to modern design as found at the 1939 New York World's Fair. John John McAndrew replaced Philip Johnson as the head of the Department of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art and explained his criteria for inclusion in the Guide: "An honest modern design will be shaped by the exigencies of function and material, and by the formal invention of the designer. It will be free of mannerisms. . . The Laboratory School of Industrial Design, established in 1936, was the first school in the United States to devote its entire curriculum to training for the various fields of so-called industrial design, namely, product, textile, interior, advertising and display design. Every instructor on the staff must be actively engaged in his profession while teaching at the school.” The cover of this insert is widely recognized as one of the iconic images of 20th-century American Graphic Design, as has been reproduced countless times in design histories/anthologies. A classic piece of original ephemera from the most influential graphic designer of all time.
- Christmas Cards Published by the American Artists Group:A 16-page Portfolio of Reproductions from the printed in 5-color offset and featuring many WPA-eras artists including Rockwell Kent, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Doris Lee, Adolph Dehn, John Steuart Curry, Emil Ganso, Dale Nichols and others.
- P-M Shorts column mentions Hans J. Barschel, Rex Cleveland, Edward A. Adams, Kurt H. Volk , Peter DeNapoli, Laszlo Matulay, John Kanelous, Fritz Eichenberg, Daniel Berkeley Updike, George Switzer, August Gauthier, Evelyn Harter, Percy Seitlin, Lester Beall, Herbert Matter, Bauhaus Exhibit - MOMA, Frederic Goudy, Paul Rand, Laszlo Matulay, Rex Cleveland; Boycott of printing types made in Nazi Germany with proclamation and list of signers; The Laboratory School of Industrial Design, Paul Rand, Laszlo Matulay , Anthony Velonis , AIGA, Paul Strand , Norman W. Forgue and Frederic Ryder, The Spiral Press, Ted Sandler , William Golden, and Leonard Hyams.
- Books and Pictures: Books Reviewed: Changing New York - photos by Berenice Abbott; All the Brave - drawings of the Spanish War by Luis Quintanilla; Woodcuts of NY by Hans Alexander Mueller; Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky published by the Heritage Club; Walden by Henry David Thoreau published by the Heritage Club; The Parlor by Elizabeth Mead; and Walker Evans' AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHS, hot off the presses from the Museum of Modern Art, is reviewed rather favorably with three photographs reproduced. It doesn't get any better than this.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a pioneer typographer, photographer, and designer of the modern movement and a master at the Bauhaus in Weimar, may have come closest to defining the Rand style when he said Paul was "an idealist and a realist using the language of the poet and the businessman. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to analyze his problems, but his fantasy is boundless."
If the word legend has any meaning in the graphic arts and if the term legendary can be applied with accuracy to the career of any designer, it can certainly be applied to Paul Rand (1914-1996). In 1951, the legend was already firmly in place. By then Paul had completed his first career as a designer of media promotion at Esquire-Coronet -- and as an outstanding cover designer for Apparel Arts and Directions. He was well along on a second career as an advertising designer at the William Weintraub agency which he had joined as art director at its founding. Paul Rand's book, Thoughts on Design, with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design, had been published four years earlier‹a publishing event that cemented his international reputation and identified him as a designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo.
The chronology of Paul Rand's design experience has paralleled the development of the modern design movement. Paul Rand's first career in media promotion and cover design ran from 1937 to 1941, his second career in advertising design ran from 1941 to 1954, and his third career in corporate identification began in 1954. Paralleling these three careers there has been a consuming interest in design education and Paul Rand's fourth career as an educator started at Cooper Union in 1942. He taught at Pratt Institute in 1946 and in 1956 he accepted a post at Yale University's graduate school of design where he held the title of Professor of Graphic Design.
In 1937 Paul launched his first career at Esquire. Although he was only occasionally involved in the editorial layout of that magazine, he designed material on its behalf and turned out a spectacular series of covers for Apparel Arts, a quarterly published in conjunction with Esquire. In spite of a schedule that paid no heed to regular working hours or minimum wage scales, he managed in these crucial years to find time to design an impressive array of covers for other magazines, particularly Directions. From 1938 on his work was a regular feature of the exhibitions of the Art Directors Club.
Most contemporary designers are aware of Paul Rand's successful and compelling contributions to advertising design. What is not well known is the significant role he played in setting the pattern for future approaches to the advertising concept. Paul was probably the first of a long and distinguished line of art directors to work with and appreciate the unique talent of William Bernbach. Paul described his first meeting with Bernbach as "akin to Columbus discovering America," and went on to say, "This was my first encounter with a copywriter who understood visual ideas and who didn?t come in with a yellow copy pad and a preconceived notion of what the layout should look like."
Paul spent fourteen years in advertising where he demonstrated the importance of the art director in advertising and helped break the isolation that once surrounded the art department. The final thought of his Thoughts on Design is worth repeating: "Even if it is true that commonplace advertising and exhibitions of bad taste are indicative of the mental capacity of the man in the street, the opposing argument is equally valid. Bromidic advertising catering to that bad taste merely perpetuates that mediocrity and denies him one of the most easily accessible means of aesthetic development."
In 1954 when Paul Rand decided that for him Madison Avenue was no longer a two-way street and he resigned from the Weintraub agency, he was cited as one of the ten best art directors by the Museum of Modern Art. This was the same year in which he received the gold medal from the Art Directors Club for his Morse Code advertisement addressed to David Sarnoff of RCA.
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.