For the past few weeks I've been poring over issues of Graphis from the fifties into the early sixties. These images and text are from GRAPHIS 86 published in 1959. This isn't the entire piece. There are many more images. I found these interesting because they are Carle working in a variety of styles, experimenting, searching for his voice. I hope you find them as fascinating as I do.
"Eric Carle was born in 1929 in Syracuse, New York. He was educated in Germany and trained at the Akademie der bildenden Kunste in Stuttgart, studying under Professor E. Schneidler (1946-60). He was with the promotion department of the New York Times before serving in the U.S. Army. Since 1955 he has been associated with L.W. Frohlich & Co., Inc."
"Eric Carle was recently appointed Art Director of I.M.S. It is his responsibility to coordinate art departments abroad. An intricate task indeed."
Carle is a graphic designer without formulas, which immunizes him from trite cliches. He has a warm grasp of a problem that gives images a glowing aliveness. For him, a successful promotion piece must have articulate impact...should work effortlessly without pushing or pointing. He is accomplished in many mediums, and this enables him to use the technique best suited to a particular situation. Casrle believes that a creative individual should maintain an optimistic approach. The moment he starts to worry and fret, he finds that his work becomes dull and cold, therefore the importance of the uninhibted attitude.
Carle likes to play around with a project until suddenly something works out of it spontaneously...this means a standing invitation for the accidental and incidental. In Carle's opinion. pharmaceutical advertising art should possess a certain abstract quality, acting as a diverting counterpoint to the extremely concrete nature of the copy."---P.K. Thomajan
Here's the link to Steve Heller's blog. Fascinating stuff and certainly worth everyone's while. Is there any way to connect this blog to Drawger? It would be a welcome addition here.
http://blog.printmag.com/dailyheller/
Recent pieces for Joe Klein's IN THE ARENA for TIME
posted:
"What Bush Taught McCain: The GOP candidate's negative turn is straight out of the Bush campaign handbook"
"Blowing His Top. (McCain's Foreign Policy Frustration): McCain's bellicose, against-all-enemies foreign policy is collapsing--and not a moment too soon."
This piece originally appeared in the Village Voice back in 1991, during
Desert Storm. It soon took on a life of its own, and a second life now with
Iraq.
When it was first published, Patrick Flynn asked if he could publish it as
poster and sell it through the magazine as a fund-raiser for the
Progressive. That was an easy yes. I also told Patrick to add a line
running across the bottom saying that the work was copyright free, so that
anyone who wanted to could reproduce it.
It was picked up and republished on op-ed pages all across the country as
well as in Canada and Europe. MTV ran a piece on war merchandise that was
mostly anti-Saddam and pro-war stuff. Saddam toilet paper, dart boards, that
sort of thing. The only anti-war item they showed was this poster with a
phone number at the Progressive for anyone who wanted to order a copy. They
sold tons of them and it went into several printings. The Village Voice gave
away a pile of them as a first-come first serve freebie. The Progressive
also printed up t-shirts, which also sold briskly.
As a news junkie, during the ’92 Presidential campaign I would see the
poster hanging on podiums and walls at various Democratic Party forums and
functions on C-SPAN. The original art and the poster hung in New York’s
Museum of Modern Art. It’s since been included in several museum posters
collections, published in several anthologies and textbooks including Steven
Heller’s Angry Graphics: Protest Posters of the Reagan/Bush Era, (With
Karrie Jacobs) Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith Books, 1992.
Heller wrote: ““Illustrators whose ideas were otherwise too controversial
for, and squelched in mainstream publications could stretch their critical
wings. One such, Stephen Kroninger, created a photo-collage send-up of
“Uncle Sam Wants You” (originally published in the Villiage Voice ) showing
the first President George Bush hawking his Iraq war (the ransom note
lettering accompanying the image reads, “Uncle George wants you to forget
failing banks, education, drugs, AIDs, poor heath care, unemployment, crime,
racism, corruption. and have a good war.”). This art was made into a
Progressive poster, and because opponents were starved for alternative
graphic statements in this image-managed war, it also became one of the few
oppositional icons of the Desert Storm escapade.”
In the run-up to the latest war with Iraq I began getting e-mail requests
from around the country, asking permission to reprint the image for regional
protest marches. I offered to update it by changing the old Bush’s head for
the new Bush and altering the text to reflect contemporary issues, but
everyone who asked said it was perfect the way it was.
Its latest incarnation is as the November 2009 image for the Amber Lotus
“Posters for Peace and Justice” calendar, published by Amber Lotus
Publishing in conjunction with The Center for the Study of Political
Graphics. You may order the calendar here. And here’s what the
publishers wanted to evoke with this calendar:
“From the days of the Quaker broadsides against slavery to the current
conflict in the Middle East, people have used ink and paper to speak out for
peace and justice. Amber Lotus is proud to present Posters for Peace &
Justice 2009 wall calendar, a survey of modern political poster art.
Produced in partnership with Inkworks Press of Berkeley, California, and the
Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, this inspiring
calendar offers reprints of political action posters, many of them still
disturbingly relevant, combined with mission statements on the posters from
the original artists.
Since 1974, Inkworks Press, a worker owned and managed union shop, has
collaborated with many artists and activists in support of peace and
justice. With over 50,000 posters, the Center for the Study of Political
Graphics is the largest collection of post-World War II graphics in the
United States. CSPG is committed to collecting, preserving and exhibiting
this rich visual history of social change.”
The back of the Calendar showing all of the images inside.
"Major Retrospective of Work by Legendary Underground Cartoonist Kim Deitch Opens at MoCCA on September 9
• Exhibition dates: September 9 – December 5, 2008 • Opening Reception: September 12, 2008, 6 – 9 pm
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) is pleased to announce a major retrospective of work by underground cartoonist and graphic novelist Kim Deitch (b. 1944), opening September 9th and running through December 5th, 2008.
Kim Deitch: A Retrospective will display original comics pages and other work covering the artist’s entire career to date, beginning with full-page comic strips drawn for the East Village Other in the sixties up to recent graphic novels including The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alias the Cat, Shadowland, and Deitch’s Pictorama. The exhibit will also feature rarely seen work including elaborate preparatory drawings, hand-colored originals, animation cel set-ups and lithographs."
And don't forget to come and hear him speak on September 18 at The Strand Bookstore at 7:00 PM! See you there!!!
