georges lepape

vogue, april, 1928.

vanity fair, december, 1919.

paul poiret, 1924.

vogue, november, 1931.

les choses de poiret, 1911.

vogue paris, august, 1926.

vogue, july, 1931.

vogue, september, 1926.

l'oiseau bleu, 1923.

vogue, february, 1929.

feuillets d'art, le miroir rouge, 1919.

vogue, october, 1924.

house & garden, november, 1934.

vogue, january, 1923.

vogue, september, 1927.

georges lepape was born on the rue montaigne may 26, 1887. by the age of 18 he had enrolled in the ecole des beaux-arts. in 1910 he began his collaborations with paul poiret & over the next 10 years, poiret would become paris's leading haute couture designer & lepape would be recognized as one of the world's most brilliant fashion illustrators.
by 1920, lepape had worked with the houses of worth, lanvin, paquin, doucet , magazines harper's bazaar & vogue, commissions for fur, perfume & other luxury good producers, illustrations for ballets russes, costume & set designs for marcel l'herbier & a series of posters for galeries lafayette. in 1926 condé nast invited lepape to new york, further cementing a long relationship with vogue.
georges lepape remained a prolific & sought-after working artist right up to the time of his death at the age of 84, on february 15, 1971.

herbert matter

mercedes, ca. 1940

pontresina engadin, 1935

stacked children's eames chairs

ad for the container corporation of america, 1941

cover of harper's bazaar, june 1940

mercedes, nude in reeds, ca. 1940

world war II poster for civilian defense,  1941

ad for knoll chairs, 1950

mercedes, provincetown, 1940

ad for swiss tourism, 1936

mercedes with driftwood, 1940

cover for arts & architecture, january 1945

herbert matter was born in 1907 in engelberg, a swiss mountain village. in 1925, he attended the ecole des beaux-arts in genenva. in 1927, he moved to paris and attended the academie moderne under the tutelage of fernand léger & amédée ozenfant. inspired by the work of el lissitzky & man ray, he began to experiment with the rollei, focusing on photograms, collage & montage. 

in 1929 he was hired as a designer & photographer for the legendary deberny & peignot concern where he learned the nuances of fine typography while he assisted a.m. cassandre & le corbusier.

in 1932 he was abruptly expelled from france for not having the proper papers & returned to switzerland where he  designed posters for the swiss tourist office. he was offered a round trip ticket to the united states at payment for his work with a swiss ballet troupe in 1936. when the tour ended, he decided to remain. he went to see alexey brodovitch, who had been collecting the swiss travel posters, & was soon taking photographs for harper's bazaar & saks fifth avenue.

during world war II he made posters for the container corporation of america. he became the design consultant at knoll in 1944 where he worked with charles & ray eames closely for over 12 years.  he joined the yale faculty in 1952 as a professor of photography & graphic design. in 1954, he was commissioned to create the corporate identity for the new haven railroad. the ubiquitous "nh" logo, with its elongated serifs, was one of the most identifiable symbols in america.

in 1944, he was asked by the museum of modern art to direct a movie on the sculpture of his close friend & neighbor, alexander calder, which was an artistic success. from 1958 to 1968, he was the design consultant for the guggenheim museum. in 1960 he started photographing the sculpture of another close friend, alberto giacometti, for a book project - they would work on it for the next 25 years & the book was published posthumously.

his beautiful wife, mercedes, was the daughter of the american modernist painter arthur beecher carles & was herself a painter, founding the new york studio school.  they counted among their friends alexander calder, jackson pollock, willem de kooning, robert frank & alberto giacometti, franz kline & philip guston.

he died on may 8, 1984.

lajos kassák

lajos kassák in wien, um 1922

mischtechnik/collage, 1923

buch neuer künstler, lajos kassák & lászló moholy-nagy, wien, 1922

portrait of lajos kassák by lajos tihanyi, 1918

képarchitektúra (picture architecture), 1922

titelblatt der zeitschrift MA, wien, 1924

der MA-kreis in wien, um 1922

untitled (twenty/twintig), 1921

lajos kassák in budapest by józsef pécsi, 1927-28

photographies de collages, ca. 1926

lajos kassák & jolán simon by dénes rónai, 1927 

tó mozi (tó kino), 1928

lajos kassák in budapest by elemér vattay, 1964 

lajos kassák (1887-1967) budapest, hungary
"the father of every good work is discontent, and its mother is diligence."


kassák's journey led him from uneducated metalworker to author, publisher, artist, theorist & designer - the self-educated leader of the hungarian avant garde. his journals a tett (the deed, 1915-1916) and MA (today, 1916-1925) displayed typographic virtuosity. he led his activist circle in urging art to effect social change. he objected to the rules of any authority but his own.

during the hungarian soviet republic in 1919, he became a member of the special writers directorate, but after fierce debates with the republic's leader, béla kun, he decided to distance himself from bolshevism. he always remained leftist & never made a distinction between a socially responsible individual & an artist. during his vienna exile (1919-1926), after his involvement in the failed hungarian uprising of 1919, kassák engaged in visual art, created collages & undertook design work for advertising. eventually returning to budapest, kassák continued publishing journals, such as dokumentum (1926-1927) and munka (work, 1928-1939).

MA became one of the longest surviving avant-garde periodicals in europe, publishing from 1916-1925. the MA circle of writers & artists included béla uitz, iván hevesy, sándor bortnyik, ernö kállai, jános máttis teutsch & lászlo moholy-nagy among others. MA sampled creations of futurism, expressionism, cubism & dadaism from all over europe, promoted bartók & modern music alongside new literature &  the pioneering theatre of jános mácza.

fa la la la la

peter saville and howard wakefield have designed a limited edition wrapping paper for the "visit manchester" campaign (his hometown). you can get it here and if you don't have any gifts to wrap you can always just frame it.