Category Archives: Picture Collection
Evie Elman’s New Collage in the Visual Arts Library
Evie Elman, a mere couple of weeks away from completing her MAT (Masters of Arts and Teaching) took the time to leave us with a very vibrant piece of art. Her contributions and presence in the library will be missed.
Utilizing the library’s wonderful scanning and color copying/printing (which is now just $.50/page) Evie went to town with Science – Microscopic View and Trees.
Don’t be a stranger, Evie.
Magazine Covers – 1980-1989 – Part 1 (“Mainstream Magazines”)
From 1982 we have”the world’s only consumer magazine about beer:” BEER. This is the Beauty (Barbara Eden with her shirt apparently completely unbuttoned) and the beer (that thing pictured in the upper right corner which Barbara made materialize) issue.
Beer 1982 December
The Mob moves in on Wayne Newton. Beverly Hills Diet: Can it kill you? Brazil gags Baez. And the fairy tale wedding (sans the longevity of ever after or happiness).
People 1981 August 3
Dick and Judy Blinn demonstrating what 1980 money looks like:
Money 1980 October. Oh, yeah, hhhott investments.
Some standard 1980 props from Time:
Time 1981 May 4
Time 1983 April 11.
Geo was a great magazine. We have a number of issues in our periodicals from 1979-1985. It was sort of like a more artsy National Geographic, but it is sadly no more.
Geo 1980 July
Next we have a selection of Atlantic magazines, many of which, at least in content and posturing, seem like they could have been published this year.
Atlantic 1987 August. Illustration by (graphic designer, illustrator, and type designer extraordinaire) Seymour Chwast.
Atlantic 1989 April. Illustration: Fred Otnes
Atlantic 1989 February.
Atlantic 1989 June. Illustration by Nicholas Gaetano.
Atlantic 1989 May. Illustration by Robert Grossman. 2012: Just switch China for Japan and Fu Manchu (or other such Chinese stereotype) for the sumo wrestler.
A selection of Omni magazine seems a fitting way to stagger your imagination, blow your mind, and be done with the mainstream 1980’s. Much like the 1980’s itself, and especially the end of the 80’s, which like the end of any decade tries too hard to descend and ascend and define, the graphics presented here are just a little too awkward and conceptually far-reaching for even 20+ of nostalgic inducing passing time to render endearing. But what do I know?
Omni 1988 November.
Omni 1989 April. Yes, CREATIVITY run amok.
Omni 1989 August
Omni 1989 February
Omni 1989 March
Omni 1989 September
Omni 1989 June
Omni 1989 November. Dreams. Wild Ones.
Omni 1989 October
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)
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