GEORGES VANTONGERLOO
PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, REFLECTIONS
Max Bill
Signed by Paul Rand
Max Bill [preface]: GEORGES VANTONGERLOO: PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, REFLECTIONS [PROBLEMS OF CONTEMPORARY ART: NUMBER 5]. New York City: Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 1948. First edition. Quarto. Thick printed wrappers. 92 pp. 49 plates [2 in color]. SIGNED on front endpaper by Paul Rand. Cover design and typography by Paul Rand. A fine, fresh copy. Rare thus.
7.5 x 10 softcover book with 92 pages and 49 plates, 2 in color. Part of the Wittenborn series designed by Paul Rand and with a preface by Max Bill. Vantongerloo was a Belgian World War I conscript who was wounded in a gas attack in 1914 and discharged from the army. In 1916 he met Theo Van Doesburg and the following year he became a co-signator of the De Stijl group's first manifesto. Vantongerloo was one of the three founders of De Stijl with Van Doesburg and Mondrian. His rationalist approach to art must have been a great comfort to him after World War I.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface by Max Bill
Introductory Note by the Author
Biographical Note
List of Illustrations
Introductory Reflections
Of Reproduction
The Subject
On Geometry
Reflections: I - IV
False Bases of Reasoning
Reflections: V - VII
Concluding Remark
Excerpted from a piece by Lucy Flint on the web site for The Guggenheim: "Georges Vantongerloo, who accepted the De Stijl restriction of line to horizontal and vertical in 1919, based his sculpture on the volumetric translation of this principle. The variation of volume and proportion in his work was determined geometrically, often according to mathematical formulae. Mathematics was for Vantongerloo a convention that established order in the world, a rationalization of nature that could be combined successfully with an aesthetic intention to result in the production of a work of art. In this approach he felt closest to the medieval artist who composed within the constraints of geometric convention, and to the ancient Egyptians, whose solution to the 'problem' of the pyramid of Cheops consisted in 'the inscribed and circumscribed squares of a circle.'"
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). By 1947, 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. THOUGHTS ON DESIGN (with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design) had just published -- an event that cemented his international reputation and identified him as a designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo.
A chronology of 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 Rand 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. Rand was probably the first of a long and distinguished line of art directors to work with and appreciate the unique talent of William Bernbach. Rand 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."
Rand 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 from 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 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. The rest is design history.
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."