CRAFTSMANSHIP IN A CHANGING WORLD
Robert Brownjohn, Ivan Chermayeff [Designers]
Robert Brownjohn, Ivan Chermayeff [Designers]: CRAFTSMANSHIP IN A CHANGING WORLD. New York: Museum of Contemporary Crafts, 1956. Original edition. Slim square quarto. Saddle stitched photo illustrated wrappers. 36 pp. 16 black and white images. Catalog of 316 items. Elaborate period graphic design throughout on multiple paper stocks. Wrappers rubbed at spine crown, otherwise a fine copy. Rare copy of the first Museum of Contemporary Crafts catalog.
6 x 6-inch stapled exhibition catalog with 36 pages, 16 black and white images, and a checklist of 316 items. Elaborate—and early—period graphic design by Robert Brownjohn and Ivan Chermayeff. Catalog of the premier exhibition "Craftsmanship in a Changing World" held at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City, from September 20 through November 4, 1956. Foreword by Aileen O. Webb, President, American Craftsmen's Council and Introduction by Thomas S. Tibbs, Director, Museum of Contemporary Crafts.
“The exhibition will include 300 examples of work from 150 American craftsmen in ceramics, sculpture, metalsmithing and jewelry, enameling, mosaic, weaving, including fabrics, tapestries and rugs, printed fabrics, and woodworking.” — Press Release, 1956
Features halftone reproductions of work by J. T. Abernathy, Irena Brynner, Lawrence G. Copeland, Karl Drerup, Maija Grotell, Marj Hyde, Miriam Leefe, Martha Pollock, Arthur J. Pulos, Daniel Rhodes, Mary Kring Risley, Edwin and Mary Scheier, Marion Stuart, Lenore Tawney, Peter Voulkos, and Franz Wildenhain.
The initial Museum of Contemporary Crafts Trustees were Alfred Auerbach, Richard F. Bach, F. Carlton Ball, Rene D'harnoncourt, Dorothy Draper, Ely Jacques Kahn, Jack Lenor Larsen, Dorothy Liebes, Richard Petterson, Henry Varnum Poor, Antonio Prieto, Arthur J. Pulos, Meyric R. Rogers, Jean Sulzberger, Walker Weed, and Edward Wormley.
Catalog artists include Richard Arthur Abell, J. T. Abernathy, Mark Adams, Helen S. Adelman, Allan Adier, Ruth A. Schnee, Anni Albers, Arthur Ames, Lili Blumenau, Jean Ames, Irena Brynner, Laura Andreson, F. Carlton Ball, Madeleine Burrage, Muriel Barnes, Thelma Stoner Betherer, Arthur Espenet, Ernestine Beleal, Katherine Choy, Harry Bertoia, Hans Christensen, Frederick L. Colby, Jr., Lawrence G. Copeland, James Crumrine, William DeHart, Jack R. Denst, Margaret DePatta, Velma Doiier, Karl Drerup, Joel Edwards, Charlotte K. Engle, Paul W. Eshelman, Richard Eshkanian, Ruben Eshkanian, Lillian Garrett, Paul Evans, Henry Gernhardt, Roy Ginstrom, Phillip Fike, Glidden Pottery, Fong Chow, John A. Foster, J. Arnold Frew, Sergio Delia Strologo, Madge Friedman, Ida Dean Grae, Verdelle Gray, Maija Grotell, Trude Guermonprex, Monica Hannasch, Stuart Halwood, Edith Heath, Ray Hein, Vivika and Otto Heino, Adda Husted-Andersen, Marj Hyde, Alexander Girard, Isabel Scott, Dorothy Liebes Studio, Ralph Higby, Albert Jacobson, Lilly E. Hoffman, Charles Bartley Jeffery, David Holleman, Jeanette Householder,Karen Karnes, Harriet R. Howe, Kenney-Eagen, Paul E. Killinger, Louisa King, Robert J. King, Maria Kipp, Henry C. Kluck, Eszter Haraszty, Nadyo Kostyshak Shelburne, Vermont Karl Laurell, Walter and Mary King, William Kurwacz, Miriam Leefe, Hui Ka Kwong, Charles lakofsky, Lemurian Crafts, Reynolds G. Dennis, Anthony LaRocco, Dorothy Liebes, Jack lenor Larsen, Inc., Harvey K. Littleton, Richard Loving, John May, Harrison Mclntosh, Harold A. Milbrath, Frederick A. Miller, John Paul Miller, Jane Kauppi, Lea Van P. Miller, Earl B. Pardon, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Quintin Neal, James A. Parker, Jr., Minnie Negoro, Jane Parshall and Denis Chasek, Tauno & Jane Kauppi and R. McKinley, Ronald Pearson, Tauno Kauppi, Harvey Pettit, Charles A. Piper, Louis B. Raynor, Else Regensteiner and Julia McVicker, Antonio Prieto, John Prip, Barney M. Reid, Merry Renk, Arthur J. Pulos, Joe Mortin, Theodore Randall Alfred, I. E. J. Rhodes, Victor Ries, John Risley, Mary Kring Risley, Ruth S. Roach, Ed Rossbach, Olin L. Russum, Jr., Olin and Jean Russum, George K. Solo Sutton, Kaylo Selzer, Arthur Smith, Herbert H. Sanders, Edwin and Mary Scheier, Paul E. Soldner, June Schwarcz, John R. Stevens, James D. Secrest, Marion Stewart, Philip J. Secrest, Bob Stocksdale, Kay Sekimachi, Michael S. Vizzini, Franz Wildenhain, Robert A. von Neumann, Marguerite Wildenhain, Peter H. Voulkos, Richard M. Wakamoto, David Weinrib, George A. Wells, Margaret Craver Withers, Beatrice Wood, Ellamarie Wooley, William Wyman, Jerome Ackerman, Arundell Clarke, Hobart E. Cowles, Frances Felton, Doris Collins Foster, Jeanette Householder, Luke and Rolland Lietzke, Mary Lindheim, Alixandra Mackenzie, Ruth Gowdy McKinley, Clarissa Rinaker, Paul John Smith, and Dorothy Mirth Young.
opened its doors in 1956 with an original mission of recognizing the craftsmanship of contemporary American artists. Nurtured by the vision of philanthropist and craft patron Aileen Osborn Webb, the Museum mounted exhibitions that focused on the materials and techniques associated with craft disciplines. From its earliest years, the Museum celebrated the changing roles of craftsmanship in society, served as an important advocate for emerging artists, and linked art to industry.
From 1963 to 1987, under the directorship of Paul J. Smith, the Museum presented dynamic and often participatory exhibitions that reflected the social currents of the era and broke down hierarchies in the arts with the celebration of popular culture and mundane materials. In 1979, the Museum reopened as the American Craft Museum in an expanded location at 44 West 53rd Street. To accommodate its ever- growing programming, the Museum relocated again in 1986 to its 18,000-square-foot home at 40 West 53rd Street, where it would remain until 2008.
The next ten years were a period of rapid growth and change, as the American Craft Council was restructured and the Museum and the Council were established as independent organizations. Detailed records of the Museum’s exhibition history (1953-1990) and related content can be found in the Council Library and Archives. Holly Hotchner was appointed as director of the Museum in 1996, and served as director for 16 years until 2013. Hotchner initiated a comprehensive strategic planning process that expanded the Board of Trustees, curatorial staff, and exhibition and educational program. This process led to the Museum’s name change, in 2002, to the Museum of Arts and Design to reflect the institution’s increasingly interdisciplinary collections and programming. The continued growth of MAD’s collections, public programs, and attendance resulted in its successful 2002 bid to the New York City Economic Development Corporation to acquire the building at 2 Columbus Circle.
The Museum opened in its new home, designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, in September 2008. With its textured façade of glazed terra-cotta tile and fritted glass, the Jerome and Simona Chazen Building reflects MAD’s craft heritage and permanent collections and animates Columbus Circle, one of Manhattan’s most significant public spaces.
Robert Brownjohn (United States, 1925 – 1970) enrolled at the Institute of Design in 1944. He became a protégé of Moholy-Nagy and much of the structural quality in Brownjohn’s graphic design can be traced to his influence. Upon graduation, Brownjohn initially worked as an architectural planner in Chicago before returning to the Institute of Design to teach.
Architectural Forum noted that he “may have been the most talented student ever to have graduated from Chicago’s Institute of Design.” He personified Moholy-Nagy's idea that art and life can be integrated: “The true artist is the grindstone of the sense; he sharpens his eye, mind and feeling; he interprets ideas and concepts through his own media.”
In his short but intense life, Brownjohn helped to redefine graphic design, to move it from a formal to a conceptual art. His projects exemplify every aspect of his relationship to design, including emphasis on content over form and preferences with ordinary and personal images. His spirit of invention and designs for living in the machine age were balanced with references to the aesthetic models that Moholy-Nagy admired.
Here is an excerpt of the C. Ray Smith essay that accompanied Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar’s recognition as AIGA Medalists in 1979: “Finding relationships, as Ivan Chermayeff (Great Britain, United Staes 1932 – 2017) has said, is what graphic design is all about. It is also what poetry is about—analogy, simile, metaphor, meaning beyond meanings, images beyond images. In the work of Chermayeff and Geismar, images are words, have meanings, communicate. They make visual images that are graphic poetry.
“Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar (1931 – ) combine their special kind of poetic communication with efficient practicality. Throughout their career they have shown two interests and directions: first, an emphasis on process or—to use the designers' by-now 20-year-old slogan—“problem solving”; and second, an exploration of a remarkable wide variety of aesthetic approaches to make their images. Their success at problem solving over the years has permitted them to plan, design and supervise an impressive number of corporate graphics programs across the broadest international framework. They are acclaimed for their methodology—for the clarity and organization of their graphics systems, for their pursuit of consistent details that work at every size and scale to solve the problems of multilingual programs. As a consequence they have collected commissions for corporate programs the way other designers collect book jacket commissions—Burlington Industries, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dictaphone, Mobil Corporation, Pan Am and Xerox, to name a few. Their work includes logos, symbols, letterheads, signs, annual reports, posters, bags and boxes and banners, trucks and airplanes, tank cars and tote bags, T-shirts and ties, television titles and credits.
“Designer Rudolph de Harak recalled in his presentation of the AIGA Medal that as early as 1959, when Chermayeff and Geismar were having an exhibition of their work in New York City, a news release stated that their design office “operated on the principle that design is a solution to problems, incorporating ideas in relation to the given problem, rather than a stylistic or modish solution.” Twenty years later, de Harak observed, “Their philosophy is still the same.”
“Our work starts from the information to be conveyed,” Ivan Chermayeff explains, “and only then goes on to make the structure subservient to that information or make the structure a way to help express the idea.”
“Chermayeff and Geismar met at Yale in the mid-1950s when so many ideas that are now a part of our lives were germinating. Chermayeff was born in London, the son of the distinguished architect-teacher Serge Chermayeff. He studied at Harvard, the Institute of Design in Chicago, and received a BFA at Yale. Geismar was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and studied concurrently at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, then received an MFA at Yale. There, both designers discovered a common interest in the design of alphabets or typefaces; they met doing research on papers about typeface design.
“Their degrees completed, Geismar went into the Army where he worked as a designer of exhibitions and graphics. Chermayeff went to work in New York, first for Alvin Lustig, then for CBS designing record covers. In 1957, they opened their own practice in New York.