Author Archives: Periodicals/Reference Librarian
Magazine Covers – 1970-1979
This post continues to look at Magazine Covers throughout the decades. 1970-1979 contains hundreds of items and as usual it was difficult choosing these few to feature.
I begin with this gem from 1970, the beautifully produced, polite propaganda, Soviet Life. We have a number of full issues in our periodical collection from the late 60’s, early 70’s, and early 80’s.
Portrait of Lenin, a woodcut done in 1968 by Andrei Goncharov
And from the idealism of Lenin we move onto the eroticism of Lennon in Avant Garde magazine which is also available in our periodicals no.1(1968:Jan.)-no.14(1971:summer).
This cover features the Lithograph "Lotus" by John Lennon
Cover by Jean-Pierre Fouchet
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, by Giovanni di Paolo (1402 or 1403 - about 1482), Italian (Siena). Tempera on wood, 17 3/4 x 20 1/2 inches. Photograph: Malcolm Varon. From the Robert Lehman collection.
Richard Serra "Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted, Webster Ave. & 183rd Street, Bronx."
From the table of contents: "Cover: The snapshots on the cover were taken by the Editor at Borobudur and Prambhanan in Central Java and on the island of Bali. They depict the original setting of the Indonesian art works recently shown at the Asia House Gallery in New York."
From the table of contents: "The Cover: A whale breaching--or leaping from the water to roll onto its back--is a sight few landsmen can expect to encounter. Artist Alan E. Cober, a leading American illustrator, depicted the whale on our cover..."Few people even know what a whale looks like," says Cober. "I have rendered the marine life realistically, but the realism is my own."
Performance (May/June 1973)
Arts in Society (Summer/Fall 1973)
- Novum Gebrauchs Graphik (February 1978) Cover by Young Su Lee
Novum Gebrauchs Graphik (March 1978) Cover: Wenzel Schmidt
Novum Gebrauchs Graphik (August 1978) cover by: Christian Josef
Novum Gebrauchs Graphik (November 1978) cover by: Kondow Satoshi
Audubon (September 1977)
This is a strange one, the “urban renaissance” issue of this defunct inflight magazine from US Airways. “Mainliner Magazine” sounds like something for the heroine chic crowd.
Mainliner Magazine (March 1979)
Black American Literature Forum (Fall 1979) Illustration by Chike C. Aniaicor
Charts, Graphs, & Diagrams
Currently containing about 100 item, Charts, Graphs, & Diagrams is one of the Picture Collection’s newer categories. Like Advertising – Corporate Identity, Industry, & Utility, the content of this category owes a great deal to late 1940’s and early 1950’s Fortune Magazines. In the future, if this category grows like a good category should, I will probably see fit to cull Diagrams into its own category . I have already divided this post, presenting first a few charts and graphs and the diagrams after.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, a chart or graph utilizes some sort of axis or axes, often horizontal and vertical, and reveals its information by specific plots or points and their relationship to the value established by the axes and to each other. The terms chart and graph are apparently interchangeable, but I tend to think of charts as more in the map family (of which the Picture Collection has an extensive collection) and graphs as more of the where z meets x and y variety. Regardless, charts, graphs, and diagrams all fall under the greater heading of information design. If you are interested in learning more about information design, take a look at Visual Art Library librarian Amos Turner’s LibGuide which will guide you to a bevy of resources on the subject.
Given the proliferation of PowerPoint and all of its default this, auto content that, it’s easy to forget that charts and graphs are often elegant, artistic, compositionally savvy illustrations.
Fortune 1950 February
Even this arcane brown-scale graph, with its clean lines and geometric intersections, is very nice to look at.
Fortune 1949 February
Here are a couple of graphs with language out of a Philip Levine poem, with its smelter gasses and pyrites of the heart.
Fortune 1951 July
National Geographic 2011 May
A 1951 org chart in the style of Tim Burton:
Fortune 1951 August
And now the diagrams.
Esquire 1964 December
Fortune 1951 September
Fortune 1949 February (worsted yarn)
Fortune 1951 July Distilled Water
Fortune 1950 January, Drawings by Rolf Klep
I thought these last diagrams were interesting, especially the bottom one which depicts a contraption which “metalize(s)…toy airplanes, junk jewelry” and the like to be sold in dime stores. Despite the unromantic process, the output, detailed below, looks magical.
Fortune 1949 September OJ & Toys
Fortune 1949 September OJ & Toys (toy detail)
ADVERTISING – FOOD – 1862-1939
1862-1939 is our oldest subcategory of sustenance and taste sensation advertising. Thereafter the subdivisions are broken up by decade: 1940-1949, 1950-1959, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, 1990-1999, 2000-2009, 2010-2019.
It is astonishing how text heavy ads from this time period were. Only the legalese of drug advertisements warnings have as much text these day. Our oldest food ad (it’s actually a book that instructs you how to better grow food) from 1888:
From the Youth’s Companion, 1898, we have a Quaker Oats ad that pre-dates the formation of the Quaker Oats company (which formed in 1901–until that time it was called the Quaker Mill Company). We also have an ad for Beardsley’s Shredded Codfish which leverages the abstentions of lent by letting the devout know that they can still indulge in a delightful dish of fish cream and fish balls.
Also from the Youth’s Companion, 1898, is this romantic little Wheat Germ ad:
I do not have exact dates for the following four ads, but I guess they are from approximately 1900.
“This four year old girl was raised entirely on Eskay’s food.” & “For Infants and Invalids.” This is so very sinister:
I am John Mackintosh the Toffee King, and just as the moon controls the tides, I control your children:
From 1901, this may be the ugliest ad that I have ever seen:
We have many Libby’s ad from different time periods. This one, from 1904, I believe is our oldest:
I remember deviled ham sandwiches (as if I were Joe Brainard). I didn’t care for them as a child, but I could really go for one right now. 1924:
1930’s (ca):
1930 era Pep cereal depicts the boy of the house usurping the man of the house (not pictured) to the great adoration of the woman of the house.
The bread diet, 1939!
And finally, also from 1939, a comic ad for All-Bran featuring “The Regulars” sharing a page with a fencing baby.
Magazine Covers 1960-1969
We continue our look at magazine covers throughout the decades with a diverse smattering from the 1960’s. We start off with some teen magazines (teen magazines, much like the teenagers, were invented in the 1950’s and really came into their own in the 1960’s).
Teen (November 1964)
19 (August 1969)
We have many nice film magazine from the 1950’s forward, here are a few:
Film Culture (Summer 1960)
Film Quarterly (Winter 1967-8) Still from Aurthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde"
The French sure love their cinema.
An early edition of L’Esprit Créateur: The International Quarterly of French and Francophone Studies.
L'Esprit Createur (Winter 1968)
A couple titanic Fortune Magazines (of which we have many from the 1940’s on).
Fortune (August 1969)
Fortune (June 1964)
A couple of our Graphic Design and Art covers:
Graphis n. 113 (1964)
Art International (1965) Photograph of Yaacov Agam's mural, Double Metamorphosis, on the S.S. Shalom, flagship of the Zim Lines.
Art International (March 1964) Cover by: Rollin Crampton
Industrial Design (November 1969)
Realites (1967)
A trio of the ever elegant Met Bulletin Covers:
Met Bulletin (February 1968)
Met Bulletin (October 1968) A North African Hanging from about 1600, woven silk with metal thread, 18 feet 8 inches x 4 feet 4 inches.
Met Bulletin (February 1969) Water Color by Jacob Marrel.
Met Bulletin (October 1969) Front (aka: right) The Thorn of Charity. Back: David with Two Musicians, and David and Goliath. Miniatures, enlarged three and a half time (per the original cover), from a psalter and prayer book made for Bonne of Luxembourg by Jean Pucelle, French. About 1345. Colors on parchment, 2 1/8 inches x 1 7/8 inches and 2 1/16 inches x 1 3/4 inches. The Cloisters Collection.
And an exceedingly shiny Harper’s Bazaar cover:
Harper's Bazar (December 1969)
SVA Library Picture & Periodicals Collections 
Magazine Covers – 1970-1979 – Part 2 (Film Magazines)
Mar 4
Posted by Periodicals/Reference Librarian
The picture collection has thousands of magazine covers, hundreds of which, sprinkled throughout the decades, are Film Magazine covers. 1970-1979 seems to have more than others, which is why I decided to give Film Magazines its own post for the 70’s. The 70’s is my favorite decade for cinema. What is yours?
Sight and Sound Spring 1970. John Frankenheimer's "The Horsemen". Photo by Hayden Percival.
Sight and Sound Spring 1971. Squirrel Nutkin (Wayne Sleep) in the Royal Ballet Film "Tales of Beatrix Potter," directed by Reginald Mills.
Film Comment Summer 1971. Jeanne Moreau and Orson Welles in Chimes at Midnight (1965) aka "Falstaff." Photo by Peppercorn - Wormser
Film Comment Spring 1972. Jane Fonda in "Klute." Photo: Warner Brothers.
Film Quarterly Fall 1972. Bud Cort in "Harold and Maude."
From Tom Dewitt Ditto's "The Fall" (1971) More About Tom Dewitt Ditto
Film Quarterly Winter 1972/1973. From Robert Altman's "Images."
AFI Report (American Film Institure Quarterly) Spring 1974. Cookie Monster eating the vision of the tele.
Film Comment Jan/Feb 1974. "Ken Takakura, Japan's number one Yakuza star. Photo: Paul Schrader.
Film Comment Nov/Dec 1974
Film Quarterly Fall 1975. Bennie Casey as "Hit Man."
Film Comment Nov Dec 1975. Georgina Hale in Ken Russell's "Mahler" (photo: MOMA/Film Stills).
Posted in Film, Magazine Covers, Picture Collection
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Tags: 1970's, 70's, AFI Report, American Film Institute Quarterly, Bennie Casey, cahiers du cinema, film comment, Film Magazines, film quarterly, Film Stills, Hit Man, Magazine Covers, Sight and Sound