March 28, 1941: The Brooklyn Museum, which has long been famous for its recognition of contemporary art, American as well international, is going a step farther this summer in a comprehensive exhibition called “Printed Art.” It will emphasize the excellence attained in the form of art most familiar to the general public, the art designed to be turned out by power presses. An appropriate subtitle for the exhibition could be “Day to Day Art” or “The People’s Daily Art Gallery.”
The exhibition is being designed to show the many problems so-called “commercial” artist is up against in producing work for business and how well they can be solved.
This will involve showing outstanding work in the advertising, poster, packaging, magazine, newspaper and book illustrating, printed decorative accessories and lithographic fields. There will be displays of at least one example from each category showing the entire process form the artist’s first sketch through the proof to the finished product. It is planned to have this show well and thoroughly labelled so that the layman can easily comprehend it.
The Committee now working on it are Laurance P. Roberts, Director of the Brooklyn Museum; Ralph Walker, architect; Edward A. Wilson, illustrator; George Welp of Interchemical Corporation; and C. A. Breskin, publisher of “Modern Packaging.” The show will open May 29, and continue through the middle September.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1939 - 1941. 01-03/1941, 074.
May 25, 1941: EXHIBITION “PRINTED ART - PICTURES AND DESIGNS THAT WORK” OPENS AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM THURSDAY, MAY 29, TO THE PUBLIC AFTER THE INVITATION PREVIEW WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 28, - AN EXHIBITION OF THE ART THE PUBLIC SEES EVER DAY AND THAT IS PRODUCED BY THE POWER PRESS; HOW IT IS CRATED AS CONTRASTED WITH THE "SELF EXPRESSION" WORK DONE BY ARTISTS FOR THEIR OWN SATISFACTION.
An exhibition that demonstrates the excellent work done specifically for the power press in practical fields of business and industry, will be held at the Brooklyn Museum from May 29 through the summer. It will be made up of examples selected from the enormous quantities of art the public, including the large part which never enters an art gallery, sees every day without realizing it. The exhibition will not include art done purely as forms of “self-expression.” It is called “Printed Art - Pictures and Designs that Work,” and opens to the public Thursday, May 29, after an invitation preview late Wednesday afternoon, May 28.
It will not be a printing show nor duplicate advertising art exhibitions, although both of these elements will present. It will show what the artist does in the production of the wide variety of objects produced by the power press. The show falls into five main divisions: magazine and newspaper illustration, advertising illustration, packaging, book illustration, and a section called “Variety Show” composed of dress, drapery and neckware fabrics; lunch cloths; wall paper and coated wall covering; fancy wrapping paper; oil cloth shelf edging, covered asbestos stove pad, table scarf and chair cushion; paper cups and plates; shower curtains; string holders; and tin trays and canisters.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1939 - 1941. 04-06/1941, 118.
May 29, 1941: An exhibition to encourage a wider appreciation of the excellent work done specifically for the power press in practical fields of business and industry, will be held at the Brooklyn Museum from May 29th through the summer. The Museum wishes to point out that the general public sees enormous quantities of art every day without realizing it and without ever entering any of hundreds of exhibitions devoted yearly to the exposition of art productions done purely as forms of self-expression. The Museum show will be called “Printed Art” and the subtitle might be “Day to Day Art,“ “The Art the Public Sees Every Day” or “Art That Works.”
This will not be another printing show or Art Directors’ Exhibition, although both of these elements will be present. The show falls into five main divisions: magazine and newspaper illustration, advertising illustration, packaging, book illustration, and miscellaneous objects such as wall covering, oil cloth, textiles, and the like. In other words, as many phases as possible of illustration and design will be represented, the common limitation being that none are complete until they come off the power press in large or small runs.
The Committee selected to advise the Museum in this activity is: George Welp, Promotion Manager of the Interchemical Corporation; Edward A. Wilson, illustrator and designer; C. A. Breskin, publisher of “Modern Packaging”; Ralph Walker, architect; and James R. Patterson, Supervisor of Interior Design, Pratt Institute.
Advertising agencies, magazines, artists, designers, type and printing companies, the Lithographers’ National Association, Inc., and The American Institute of Graphic Arts have all been drawn on, all of whom are lending material generously. Pratt Institute’s able crew of exhibition installers have charge of the physical setting up of the show.
The space devoted to it will be the Museum’s Special Exhibition Gallery, a commodious series of galleries just off the Entrance Hall. Plans at present envisage in the first small gallery an exposition of the three basic printing processes, which is being set up by Time, Inc. because of the use of all three processes in each issue of “Fortune”, in the large central gallery - magazine, newspaper and advertising illustration, packaging and display; in the next room, a small gallery - wall coverings and textiles; and in the last large square gallery - book illustration and other exhibits.
As a special feature in each division it is planned to have an exhibit of the complete process, from the art director’s letter or order, if possible, through sketches and changes to press proofs and the finished work. This is considered particularly important in this exhibition, as one of the objects is to show the problems that have to be met and solved by the artist, art director and printer, as opposed to the condition under which an artist works who creates in the seclusion of his studio with no one to impose specifications but himself.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1939 - 1941. 04-06/1941, 092-3.
May 29, 1941: “Printed Art - Pictures and Designs that Work” - an exhibition of the products of the power press pointing out that the public is in daily contact with art, opened at the Brooklyn Museum yesterday afternoon (Wednesday, May 28), with an invitation preview for Museum members and lenders of material for the show. It is open to the public today and will remain on view through October 18.
The exhibition was made possible through the efforts of Charles A. Breskin, Publisher of “Modern Packaging,” George Welp, head of the Promotion Department of Interchemical Corporation, and Edward A. Wilson, well-known magazine, advertising and book illustrator, who composed the Committee of Selection. An assisting group was made up Laurance P. Roberts, Director of the Brooklyn Museum, Theodore D. Starr, Jr., Editor of the Museum, and Arthur H. Torrey and Tay Hohoff, originators of the exhibition. James R. Patterson, head of the Interior Design Department of Pratt Institute, and a group of eight students from Pratt Institute, are responsible for the staging and styling of the show.
The exhibition is made up of a graphic explanation of the three basic printing processes; newspaper and magazine editorial and advertising design, illustration and typography; direct mail and display pieces; posters; packages and containers; textiles; special papers; wallpapers and coated fabric coverings; and book illustration.
( THE GALLERIES )
The long series of four Special Exhibition Galleries are devoted to the subject. Next to the Gallery entrance is a panel defining the limits of the show and in the first gallery, a small one, the three basic printing processes are explained simply.
The first thing to catch the eye in the main gallery is a screen across the center aisle with a large hole in the center which narrows the view to a long vista, climaxed in the end gallery by a tall inverted cone of fabrics illuminated by footlights. The intervening wall spaces have dark blue, yellow and red backgrounds and varying ingenious methods of display. Many of the exhibits are framed in glossy white mats. Free use is made of simply worded labels, easy to read.
The show emphasizes the importance of the large amount of “working” art that is issued by the power press and the part the artist plays in its creation. It also demonstrates that there is an enormous demand in this country for the artist’s skill. As the work shown is not complete until it comes off the press, originals are included only to emphasize a point, as they are usually prepared by the artist with printing in mind and not to be seen in their original form. In many cases the entire page of the publication is exhibited to show how the art work looks when placed in the setting for which it was commissioned.
(FIRST EXHIBIT)
The first exhibit, next to the entrance, is a lighted panel on which is hung an oil painting, a water color, an etching, a printed reproduction of a painting not done originally to be printed, and a photograph with a legend explaining that the exhibition is not about any of these.
(BASIC PRINTING PROCESSES)
In the first gallery the visitor sees a demonstration of primer simplicity of the three basic printing processes: relief, intaglio and planography. This is done by graphs, drawings, original paintings, printing plates and large models of printing rollers, all supplied by “Fortune” magazine which uses all three processes in each issue. This exhibit was put together by two students, Fred Grobe and Theodore Garing, who are taking the advertising course at Pratt Institute.
(WORK FROM NEWSPAPERS)
Work shown from newspapers includes feature strips in black-and-white as well as color, “tear sheets” taken from recent issues of New York papers, store fashion advertising, “before and after” copies of a newspaper recently redesigned by Norman Bel Geddes (The New York Post), a copy of “PM” designed by T. C. Clelland, and a double color page from the largest color rotogravure “run” in the country (the Sunday New York Daily News). A special exhibit is made up of each step in the creation and production of the feature strip “Flash Gordon” by Alex Raymond. Another is an original and proof sheets of one of the “Dickie Dare” features done by Coulton Waugh.
(MAGAZINE WORK)
Magazine work includes covers, illustrations for stories shown in place on the complete page, fashion illustration and advertisements. One of the exhibits is the series of color proofs of a cover for “Collier’s” by Jon Whitcomb.
(DIRECT MAIL)
In the direct mail section are booklets, proof sheets of a booklet, an original cover design and the printed result, and famous mail order catalogues. A booklet sent out by a major radio network exemplifies the use of printed art by a competing medium.
( POSTERS)
Posters include car cards, travel posters, and one for a department store. Three big posters fill the end walls, of which one was done by George Howe for the restyled circus, and two are from the American Railway Express Agency designed by Carl Burger for two sizes of trucks, pointing out a problem of design that must make one picture usable as a unit in whole and in part.
(PACKAGES AND DISPLAYS)
Arranged with the cases of packages is a platform of counter and window displays. The packages were selected to cover as many different familiar uses as space allowed of well-designed packages and containers.
(BOOK ILLUSTRATION)
The third gallery is devoted to “The Techniques of Book Illustration” prepared by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. It shows several of the principal methods of creating original art work and of reproducing it for illustration in books. The three sections are called “The Artist Makes the Printing Surface,” “The Artist’s Work Reproduced Photo-Mechanically” and “Artists and Photo-Mechanical Technicians Work Together.”
(“VARIETY SHOW”)
“Variety Show,” with special lighting, is the climax of the exhibition in the last gallery. In the center of the room, reaching from a low platform nearly to the ceiling, is an inverted cone of lengths of dress, drapery and neckwear fabrics illuminated dramatically from below by light around the platform.
By varying ingenious display methods of curving walls, broken surfaces and lighted wall cases groups of objects are shown which include lunch cloths; wallpapers, some with complementary chintzes of the same pattern; oil cloths; coated fabrics; fancy wrapping papers; Christmas cards; playing cards; cocktail napkins; tin trays and canisters; string holders; and a kitchen-dinette corner on a platform employing coated fabrics in the form of a table scarf, a chair cushion, covered asbestos stove pad and shelf edging.
The list of lenders includes artists, publishers, newspapers and newspaper syndicates, magazines, advertising agencies, engraving and printing establishments, motion picture companies, textile and wallpaper houses, manufacturers of coated fabrics, playing cards, pottery, decorative wrapping papers and paper cups, a railway company, an express company and a department store, Modern Packaging Exhibition and the permanent exhibition of “Living Lithography” at the New York Trade School.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1939 - 1941. 04-06/1941, 121-4.
Date unknown, approximately 1941: "DESIGN IN PRINTING FOR DECORATION AND APPAREL" from "Printed Art -- Pictures and Designs That Work"
TEXTILES
One-color cotton print (3 swatches, green, red and blue) designed by Ameritex from Pennsylvania Dutch fabric in Brooklyn Museum Collection. Roller print.
6 examples from a line of spun rayon and cotton, Galey & Lord. Designed from Mexican pottery stamps in Brooklyn Museum Collection, with fabric texture and colors suggested by ancient Peruvian textiles in the Museum collection.
3 printed wall coverings; Famous Houses, white on blue; gray ivy leafe on white; green flower - Standard Coated Products
Table cloth - Standard Coated Products
Pot holders, shelf edging, large piece, red and white - Standard Coated Products
5 Shower curtains - screen and roller printed - Para Manufacturing Co.
Wallpaper panel produced by lithography by Schmitz-Horning Co., - Courtesy N.Y. Trade School Living Lithography Exhibition
3 pieces wallpaper, designs by Ilonka Krasz - Katzenbach & Warren
1 piece wallpaper, design by Binnie B. Wilson - screen printed - Han-tec, Inc.
2 coordinated wallpapers and glazed chintz - screen printed - F. Schumacher & Co.
4 prize-winning luncheon cloths, from a national competition - screen printed - Fallini & Cohn
6 examples of adaptations from Van Gogh paintings, for dress fabrics - Celanese Corporation of America
6-color roller print on bright satin, dull background achieved by pigment in the pink blotch - Celanese Corporation of America
3-color screen print - 2 examples - Celanese Corporation
4-color screen print - Celanese Corporation
2-roller print; woolly effect achieved in spun yarn, fabric printed with a simulation of woven pattern - Celanese Corporation
5-color roller print - Celanese Corporation
Multi-color print, produced by three rollers carrying primary colors plus black and gray; rollers engraved by photographic color separation method - Celanese Corporation
4-roller prints for neckwear fabrics designed by William E. Probert for Celanese Corporation Men’s Wear Department
5-color roller print; 3-color screen; single color steel engraved roller print; 5-color roller print - Cohn-Hall-Marx Co.
DECORATIVE FABRICS
6 screen prints - J. H. Thorpe & Co.
2 screen prints - Johnson & Faulkner
1 screen print - Carillo Fabrics Co.
1 roller print- Atkinson Wade & Co.
1 screen print - F. Schumacher & Co.
PAPER OBJECTS
Plates, towels, napkins, cups, cups with handles - Dennison Mfg. Co.; Lily Tulip; Dixie Vortex
Champagne bucket - L.N. Renault & Sons
Gift Wrappings and printed tapes - Dennison Mfg. Co. & Chicago Printed String Co.
METAL
Candy box and tray - Courtesy N.Y. Trade School Living Lithography
KITCHEN CORNER
Table cloth designed by Helen Jurgens - Fallini Bros
Seat cushion - Standard Coated Products Co.
Printed towel and Metal Waste Basket
Window and curtains, designed and executed by Pratt Students
Examples of PACKAGES in “Printed Art -- Pictures and Designs That Work”
ON WALL
Kleenex tissue boxes - 2, red, green
Calox Tooth Powder box
Spalding “Kro-flite” golf ball package
Colgate Dental Cream box
Cannon Cavalier Percale - one package of two pillow cases
Virginia Dare Wine box.
IN FIRST CASE
The Topper men’s toilet preparation package - McKesson
Men’s toilet preparation package - Seaforth
Cologne and Scented Balm bottles - Charles of the Ritz
Six toilet preparation packages - Charles of the Ritz
Djer-Kiss perfume package - Kerkoff
Djer-Kiss bath powder package - Kerkoff
Christmas package (alphabet block) - Peck & Peck
IN SECOND CASE
Swan’s Down flour package - Igleheart Bros.
Golden Crest Milk Bottle - Borden’s
Golden Blossm Honey tin - John G. Paton Co. Inc.
Bokar Coffee bag - Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
Eight O’Clock Coffee bag - Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
“Gay Nineties” Fruit Cake tin - packed for B. Altman & Co.
Karo - 3 bottles (plain, crystal white, waffle syrup) - Corn Products Refining Co.
Early American herbs (wooden box, earthenware jars) - Cresca Co.
Early American herbs (glass jars in wooden standing box) - Cresca Co.
Early American herbs (Preserved Ginger jar and box) - Cresca Co.
Early American herbs (honey, 3 kinds, in jars) - Cresca Co.
Bon Ami de luxe package
Confection boxes, 3 - Georges de Met
Rennet Powder, 3 boxes - Hansen Laboratories
Freezing Mix, 1 box - Hansen Laboratories
Paprika can - McCormick Co.
Crushed Red Pepper can - McCormick Co.
IN THIRD CASE
Croft Cream Ale, quart can
Feigenspan XXX Amber Ale, quart bottle - Feigenspan Brewing Co.
Boston Light Beer Bottle - Boston Beer Co.
Boston Light Beer can - Boston Beer Co.
Pipe Tobacco can, Bond Street - Philip Morris Co.
Cigarette package - Spud
Cigarette package - Cort
Smoking Tobacco tin - Sir Walter Raleigh
Tobacco tins, large and small, Willoughby Taylor
Cook’s Imperial American Muscatell bottle - American Wine Co.
Cook’s Imperial American Sparkling Burgundy bottle - American Wine Co.
Cook’s Imperial American Champagne box - American Wine Co.
Old Mariner Whiskey bottle - Century Distilling Co.
Lord Calvert Whiskey bottle - Calvert Distilling Co.
Calvert gin bottle - Calvert Distilling Co.
Harmony gin bottle - Carstairs Brothers
Examples of POSTERS, MAGAZINE COVERS, FASHION ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, ETC. in “Printed Art -- Pictures and Designs That Work”
POSTERS
American Railway Express - by Carl Burger. “Tiger” poster in two sizes - lithography
Ringling Brothers Circus - by George Howe - lithography
New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R. - two examples - by Sascha Maurer (Engine and Ski-er) - lithography
Rural Electrification Administration - by Lester Boall - two examples - silk screen.
L. Bamberger & Co. - by Stanley Crane - Thanksgiving - silk screen.
Rom - by Bernhard - two car cards - lithography
Southern Pacific R.R. - by Ray Bothers - West Coast of Mexico - lithography
MAGAZINE COVERS
Vogue - by Miguel Covarrubias
Saturday Review of Literature - by McKnight Kauffer
Saturday Evening Post - Norman Rockwell
New Yorker - by Roger Duvoisin
Collier’s - by Jon Whitcomb, with color plates.
MAPS, BOOK JACKETS, CHRISTMAS AND PLAYING CARDS, ETC.
Vogue press sheets. One side of a 32 page form - black; red; black and red; yellow; black, red, yellow; blue; final.
Book jackets by McKnight Kauffer for Modern Library
Cover of an Exhibition catalogue (Annual Reports and Anniversary booklets) - Lakeside Press
Promotion booklet showing tipped-in print of lithograph by Thomas Benton for “Grapes of Wrath” - Twentieth Century Fox
Road map of New Jersey - Sunoco promotion
“America: Between Two Covers” - map made for Saturday Evening Post by V. Bobri
Christmas cards - American Artists Group
Playing Cards - Justin Sands - U.S. Playing Card Co.
Examples of ART WORK FROM NEWSPAPERS in “Printed Art - - Pictures and Designs That Work”
Black and white original drawing and color painting for “Jungle Jim” and “Flash Gordon”, with color progress proofs. King Features Syndicate
Scenarios and black and white proof of “Little Miss Muffet” - King Features Syndicate
Alligator Hunt in the Everglades, colored picture feature advertisement for Eveready Batteries.
Original and proof of “Dickie Dare” feature by Coulton Waugh - Associated Features Syndicate
Tarzan strip in black and white, four panels ## 523 through 528 - United Press Syndicate.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch proof, showing use of lithographs in a page-size advertisement for “The Long Voyage Home”. Also page of color reproductions of same from “Esquire”
2 Double page spreads in color from Sunday News, of No. 26, 1939 and Feb. 4, 1940, showing respectively - armor, drawn by Speed and Haden, staff artists, and Women’s Fashions in War Times.
Color photograph of News color roto press
Color roto advertisement for Steinway pianos by Robert Phillip
Abraham & Straus advertisement , from N.Y. Herald-Tribune (tearsheet)
Front page of N.Y. post, March 1, 1939 shown together with front page of Post after redesigning by Norman Bel Geddes (April 39, ’41)
Front page of Brooklyn Eagle, May 27, 1941.
Front page of P M, May 27, 1941
12 Denys Wortman “Everyday Movies” - United Feature Syndicate.
Examples of MAGAZINE ADVERTISING in “Printed Art -- Pictures and Designs That Work”
ILLUSTRATION by
Grohe and Walt Disney Studios - for Interchemical Corporation. Fortune advertisement, complete process from rough layout through semi-comprehensive layout, original art work, layout with instructions for engraver, typed copy, type proof, head-line lettering, Walt Disney Pinocchio color sketch, progress color proofs, proof of black plate from publication, engraver’s final proof, completed advertisement.
A. M. Cassandre - for Container Corporation of America
Zadig - for U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co.
Melbourne Brindle - for Hawaiian Tourist Bureau
Gluyas Williams - for U. S. Steel
John Falter - for Pall Mall Cigarettes
Dan Content - for Seagram Distillers Inc.
Dean Cornwell - for U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co.
James E. Allen - for U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co.
Peter Helck - for Thomas Edison Inc.
Peter Hawley - for H. J. Heinz Co.
Haddon Sunbloom - for Kelvinator Corp.
Rockwell Kent - Lithograph - for Interchemical Corporation
Peter Helck - for Crowell Publishing Co.
Melbourne Brindle - for Hawaiian Tourist Bureau
Buk Ulreich - for Cannon Mills Inc.
Steven Dohanos - for The Barret Company
Ernest Fiene - for De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd.
Sidney E. Fletcher - for Sanderson & Porter
Edmundson - for Houbigant
Buk Ulreich - for Cannon Mils, Inc.
A. M. Cassandre - for Hawaiian Pineapple Co. Ltd.
Robert Fawcett - for U.S. Steel
Georgia O’Keefe - for Hawaiian Pineapple Co. Ltd.
Tearsheet by Jury - for Maryland Casualty Co.
Tearsheet by Jury - for American Insurance Group.
Examples of MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION in “Printed Art - Pictures and Designs That Work”
ILLUSTRATION for:
Cosmopolitan by George Evan s. Complete process; letter from editor, letter in answer from artist, telegram incorporating editorial suggestions, first sketch, finished painting, proofs, and copy of magazine open at page showing illustration. (story by George F. Worts & Schuyler C. Schenck.)
Collier’s by Earl Blossom (story by Grover Jones)
Collier’s by Robert O. Reid (story by Richard English)
Woman’s Home Companion, by Harry Anderson (story by S. C. Schenck)
Woman’s Home Companion, by Harold von Schmidt (story by Carolyn Darling)
Collier’s by Ronald McLeon (story by Joseph Hergesheinier)
Collier’s by Hardie Gramatky (article by Quentin Reynolds)
Collier’s by Henry Raleigh (story by Gene Henry)
Collier’s by William Meade Prince (six small proofs on one page)
House & Garden by David Payne
Fortune by Allen Saalburg
Woman’s Home Company by Norman Rockwell (story by Elizabeth Goudge)
Saturday Evening Post by Floyd Davis (story by John Fante)
Woman’s Home Companion by Saul Tepper (story by Pearl Buck)
Fortune by A. M. Cassandre (two suggestions for posters)
Woman’s Home Companion by Pruett Carter (story by William E. Wilson)
Woman’s Home Companion by Helen Hokinson (play by Sophie Kerr)
Woman’s Home Companion by Jon Whitcomb (story by Fannie Kilbourne)
Saturday Evening Post by Steven Dohanos (story by Barre Lyndon)
Fortune by Georges Schreiber
Fortune by Harry Sternberg
Fortune by Harry Sternberg
Collier’s by George Howe (story by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan)
Vogue by Ludwig Bemelman (“War Relief Ball at the Ritz”)
Woman’s Home Companion by Floyd Davis (story by Louise D. Rich)
Woman’s Home Companion by Alfred Parker
Collier’s by Earl Oliver Hurst (story by Jan Fortune)
Collier’s (Cartoons - 15) and one by Garrett Price with first sketch, finished drawing, line-cut plate, and tear sheet.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1939 - 1941. 04-06/1941, 135-40.
