BA (HONS) Graphic Design Journal 2015/2016: Historical and Contemporary Practitioners. Inspiration.

Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp was born in 1887, in France, Blainville, and he is known as the father of Dadaism. In his early years of his career in 1904, he moved to Paris, there he studied painting until 1905. His early work was Post-Impressionist. Years later, in 1908, Duchamp's exhibited his work at the Salon di Automne, and in 1909 at the Salon Des Independants, both in Paris. After the statement of war, in 1914, Duchamp, flew to America. He quickly made friends with Man Ray, and a number of well-known figures. Duchamp basically launched the Dadaist movement in New York, and in the end, with Beatrice Wood and Henri-Pierre Roche, published a Dada magazine, entitled The Blind Man. During WWI a number of ex-futurist artist joined the movement of Dadaism as a protest. The aim was to speak out to the public the disaster of WWI, including political, moral and aesthetic ones. Dadaism was related with collectivism, in their common aim to bring to the end bourgeois society, its logical and financial structures. Marcel Duchamp wanted to speak the revenge of 'non-sense' and 'anti-art', to show how war had nonsense. Dadaism also created that element of liberation, abstraction and freedom in art, with no imagination limit.

'L.H.O.O.Q.'

Marcel Duchamp (1919)

Readymades series (Dada)

One of the well-known work that Duchamp did was the ’Mona Lisa' a copy of Da Vinci’s masterpiece which was drawn with a moustache and the short form quote of L.H.O.O.Q., which when translated into French can spell vulgar statement. During this movement he also introduced and developed the 'found art' and one can mention the 'Fountain', a urinal with his signature that he wanted to exhibit in 1917, but was rejected because it was not considered as art. By the end of the century, this work was considered as one on the most influential work. In the early 1920's he started to take part in a sequence of teamwork with Andre Breton, Man Ray, Marc Allegret among others. In 1923 Duchamp was hardly taking part and participate as an artist, and he considered himself as a victim of chess.

'Fountain'

Marcel Duchamp (1917)

Readymades series (Dada)

"Readymades" were found objects which Duchamp chose and presented as art. In 1913, Duchamp installed a Bicycle Wheel in his studio. However, the idea of Readymades did not fully develop until 1915. The idea was to question the very notion of Art, and the adoration of art, which Duchamp found "unnecessary.''

(Wikipedia)

Alfons Mucha

Alfons Maria Mucha (24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939), often known in English and French as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist,known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.

Alfons Mucha was born in 1860 in Moravia, the modern Czech Republic. He worked as a painter and studied art in Austria and Germany, before moving in 1887 to Paris, France, where he struggled to make a living as graphic artist producing book illustrations and calendar art.

In 1895, he was commissioned to create a poster for Sarah Bernhardt's play "Gismonda". The immediate success that followed, the originality and sensitivity of Mucha's new distinct style and wide public appreciation, made the legendary actress sign him to a six-year contract to design posters, stage sets and costumes for her plays.
By 1898, Mucha had become a famous and creative Art Nouveau artist. He designed and published postcards, theatre and advertisement posters, numerous illustrations and decorative panels series, set around central themes inspired by nature, some printed on silk. He produced an astonishing amount of drawings, pastel or watercolour studies and designs for interior decorations, cutlery and dinner object, jewellery and fashion. In 1902, he published the visual statement of his artistic creed, the portfolio "Documents Décoratifs", in which he established his theories and the main decorative elements of Art Nouveau. From 1907 to 1928 he worked on "The Slav Epic", a huge mural paintings series for the city of Prague.

Contemporary of Victor Horta's Art Nouveau designs in Brussels, Alphonse Mucha was influenced by Symbolism and by the social aspects of William Morris' Arts and Crafts Movement in England. He attempted to give access to the beauty of art to every social class and to elevate the decorative elements to the status of works of art. He developed his own aesthetic ideals and original style, which became the hallmark of his time and was also known as "Mucha Style".
His graphic works are based on a strong cantered composition and symbolic themes, featuring idealized young female figures in sensuous or provocative poses, entwined in vaporous hair and light dresses enriched by decorative ornaments inspired by nature, such as willowy foliage, flowers and extravagantly beautiful jewels. The figures are detailed by expressive darker lines and enriched by natural soft colours and gold; functional and decorative friezes usually frame the illustrations and the background space is filled by floral or abstract patterns.

(Wikipedia)

'The Seasons'

Alphonse Mucha (1897)

'Bieres de la Muse'

Alphonse Mucha (1897)

'Zodiac'

Alphonse Mucha (1896)

Zodiac was Mucha's first work under his contract with the printer Champenois and was originally designed as an in-house calendar for the company. In this composition, Mucha incorporated twelve zodiac signs in the halo-like disk behind the woman's head, one of Mucha's customary motifs. The majestic beauty of the woman is emphasised by her regal bearing and elaborate jewellery.
The striking design of the Zodiac calendar quickly attracted the attention of Léon Deschamps, chief editor of La Plume; he bought the rights to distribute it as the magazine's calendar for 1897. It became one of Mucha's most popular designs; at least nine variants of this lithograph are known, including this one which was printed without text to serve as decorative panel.

Foundation, M. (2016). Zodiac - Browse Works - Gallery - Mucha Foundation. [online] Muchafoundation.org. Available at: http://www.muchafoundation.org/gallery/browse-works/object/242 [Accessed 30 Jan. 2016].

Gustaw Klimt

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objects d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. In addition to his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907–1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.

(Wikipedia)

'The Tree of Life, Stoclet Frieze'

Gustav Klimt (1909)

'The Kiss'

Gustav Klimt (1907-1908)

Abram Games

Abram Games OBE, RDI (29 July 1914, Whitechapel, London – 27 August 1996, London) was a British graphic designer. The style of his work – refined but vigorous compared to the work of contemporaries – has earned him a place in the pantheon of the best of 20th-century graphic designers. In acknowledging his power as a propagandist, he claimed, "I wind the spring and the public, in looking at the poster, will have that spring released in its mind." Because of the length of his career – over six decades – his work is essentially a record of the era's social history. Some of Britain's most iconic images include those by Games. His work is recognised for its "striking colour, bold graphic ideas, and beautifully integrated typography.''

Exhibitions

Abram Games, Graphic Designer (1914–1996): Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means, Design Museum, London, 2003
Abram Games, Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means, The Minories, Colchester, 2011
Designing the 20th Century: Life and Work of Abram Games, Jewish Museum London, 2014–2015
Abram Games - Maximum Meaning Minimum Means, Dick Institute Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, 2015

(Wikipedia)

'Air Mail' (Unpublished Poster)

Abram Games (1935)

'Talk May Kill' (War Office Poster)

Abram Games (1942)

Abram Games was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London on the day that World War I began in 1914. He belonged to the golden age of British graphic design when the commercial artist produced hand crafted concepts in the days before corporate design agencies devoured the individuality of the graphic designer. As a freelance commercial artist he produced posters for an astonishing list of clients that included Shell, London Transport, BEA, BOAC, Guinness, The Royal Shakespeare Company, London Zoo, The Metropolitan Police, The Times and The Financial Times.

Abram Games 'Air Mail' poster of 1935 incorporates the main elements of his design philosophy: a perceptive combination of image and text that communicates a concept with ‘maximum meaning' using 'minimum means’.
Abram Games' reputation as a graphic designer is based on his ability to weave together layers of ideas with a great economy of means. He realized that if you combine several images in one iconic design, the result involves the spectator in a visual game to unravel the layers of meaning within. Games explained, "A poster with a measure of intrigue engages the mind of the spectator and he looks again. You have to take him along with you so he follows your line of thought. The best way I can describe what happens is to say that as the designer you wind the spring, and it is released in the mind of the viewer." (Artyfactory, 2016)

Artyfactory.com. (2016). Abram Games - Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means. [online] Available at: http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/graphic_designers/abram_games.htm [Accessed 30 Jan. 2016].

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is ''The Scream'' of 1893.

'The Scream'

Edvard Munch (1893)

A majority of the works which Edvard Munch created, were referred to as the style known as symbolism. This is mainly because of the fact that the paintings he made focused on the internal view of the objects, as opposed to the exterior, and what the eye could see. Symbolist painters believed that art should reflect an emotion or idea rather than represent the natural world in the objective, quasi-scientific manner embodied by Realism and Impressionism. In painting, Symbolism represents a synthesis of form and feeling, of reality and the artist's inner subjectivity.

Many of Munch's works depict life and death scenes, love and terror, and the feeling of loneliness was often a feeling which viewers would note that his work patterns focused on. These emotions were depicted by the contrasting lines, the darker colours, blocks of colour, sombre tones, and a concise and exaggerated form, which depicted the darker side of the art which he was designing. Munch is often and rightly compared with Van Gogh, who was one of the first artists to paint what the French artist called "the mysterious centres of the mind." But perhaps a more overreaching influence was Sigmund Freud, a very close contemporary. Freud explained much human behaviour by relating it to childhood experiences. ((Edvardmunch.org, 2016)

'The Dance of Life'

Edvard Munch (1899)

Edvardmunch.org. (2016). Edvard Munch - Paintings,Biography,Quotes of Edvard Munch. [online] Available at: http://www.edvardmunch.org/ [Accessed 15 April 2016].

Sagmeister & Walsh

Sagmeister & Walsh is a NYC based design firm that creates identities, commercials, films, books and objects for clients, audiences and ourselves.

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister was born in Austria and lives and works in New York. He has worked for the Rolling Stones, The Talking Heads, Lou Reed, The Guggenheim Museum and Levis. Exhibitions on Sagmeister's work have been mounted in New York, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Paris, Lausanne, Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Cologne and Berlin.

Jessica Walsh

Jessica Walsh is a multidisciplinary designer working in New York City. Her work has won design awards from the Type Director’s Club, Art Director’s Club, SPD, Print, and Graphics. She has received various celebrated distinctions such as Computer Art’s “Top Rising Star in Design,” an Art Director’s Club “Young Gun,” and Print Magazine’s “New Visual Artist”