Category Archives: Picture Collection
Magazine Covers — 1920-1929 (Part 2: Garten Schönheit)
This is a quick delve back into the 1920’s before I trundle into the 1940’s. It’s a perfect spring day in New York City, and so I feel compelled to share some of the Picture Collection’s loveliest pieces. We have all 12 months of Garten Schönheit from 1922. Each cover of this monthly magazine features a fantastic floral themed, late Art Nouveau illustration. Also, notice how from month to month, and season to season, the illustration behind the title changes, beginning with a brown root system in January, and progressing through color and leaf, flower and fruit. Enjoy.
Magazine Covers — 1930-1939
From February 1930 we have some exceedingly (borderline illegible) Gothic type on an issue of Velhagen & Klasing Monatshefte. Velhagen & Klasing was a German publishing house, and this was apparently one of their journals. According to http://www.burchfreunde.de, it was some sort of catch all humanities title with poetry, fiction, art, lit criticism, & etc.. I have included a detail of the middle (because I adore it), which features some Pisces fish, a very cute cat, and an explosion of cheer.
I find the next piece to be a sophisticated little piece of design, as well as a very telling artifact from the advertising community. There is a ghostly heard of identical consumers not only in cross-hairs, but also under the auspicious gaze of a giant graphic eye.
Starting in 1896, House Beautiful is the longest running “Shelter Magazine.”
We have quite a few Etude covers, an American music magazine, but none with gypsies as well dressed as the ones featured on this October 1930 issue.
As mentioned before, we have Travel covers from several different decades. I love the flourish of the v as it “travels” to the l. And once again, the depth of color is pretty astonishing.
A very clever illustration from Vanity Fair contrasting the fat cat 1920’s with the hobo 1930’s, utilizing newspaper stock market report cutouts.
And a very stiff-jawed Katharine Hepburn. We have a number of other Vanity Fair covers, do stop in and see them.
Magazine Covers — 1920-1929
We continue our delve into our deep folders of Magazine Covers. It is ever so hard to pick just a few to show you from each decade, but I hope this sampling entices you to come in and see more in person. Please enjoy these richly illustrated gems!
La Science et la Vie started in 1913 and persists to this day (but is now just called Science & Vie). We have dozens of these—all richly printed with illustrations depicting all the wonderful possibilities of industry, technology, and all things grand through science!
Illustrirte Zeitung was apparently Germany’s first illustrated magazine, published by J.J. Weber in Leipzig in 1843. As we learned from Steven Heller concerning “Das Plakat, Germany had a leg up on graphic design in the early 20th Century. You can also learn a bit more about Illustrirte Zeitung here.
We have several covers of Nature Magazine from the 1920’s. Vintage wildlife motifs, inspired by covers like these, have been very popular in home design for a number of years now, like in the work of John Derian.
I took this information from an auction website:
Shadowland, a magazine published in the late 1910s and 1920s, which billed itself as “Expressing the Arts”, and “The Magazine of Magazines”. Each issue had a variety of articles about various aspects of the arts, and each issue had at least one story dealing with movies. The articles were heavily illustrated with quality sepia photos by named photographers (who are credited next to the photos), and the entire magazine has a feel similar to that of “The New Yorker”, except of course that it solely focuses on the arts, and has many illustrations throughout. There are a few interior color pages in each issue and a few ads scattered through each issue. The magazine was published by the same people who published Motion Picture magazine. (http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=1937319 accessed 4/26/2011).
And lastly, Travel magazine, another title we have dozens of examples of from multiple decades. The printing color is exuberantly rich. Come to the Picture Collection and see more!
Magazine Covers–Pre-1920–Part 2 (Das Plakat)
Das Plakat, a German magazine, began in 1910 as an extension of Verein der Plakat Freunde (The Society for Friends of the Poster). Everything I know about Das Plakat I learned from an article by SVA’s own Steven Heller that he wrote for designtaxi.com. Read it now, and become illuminated!
We only have one proper cover of Das Plakat (Plakat means poster), a striking gold-metallic number from May 1914. The issue was devoted to European poster stamps.
The other items we have are not magazine covers, rather they are interior pages from various issues 1913-1915 (though I have decided they should live in the Magazine Covers folder so users can consider them together). Examples follow:
The next two pages feature works by Austrian painter, draftsman, illustrator, commercial graphic artist, typographer and writer Julius Klinger:
Julius Klinger in our book stacks:
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Next is a poster advertising a Schützenfest (target shooting party) by Richard Schaupp:
And lastly the title page from the January 05, 1914 edition:
Magazine Covers – Pre-1920 – Part 1 (Magazines for girls, boys, and women)
So, magazine covers. I will try to do at least 1 post for each chronological subdivision, starting with pre-1920.
First, our oldest magazine cover, a very Victorian Scribner’s Illustrated Magazine, June 1874.
I must admit that I love the S's in "For Girls and Boys" though they do nothing to indicate playfulness or carefree childhood. Maybe it is for "naughty" girls and boys.
Next up, a patriotic Pearson’s from July 1900 featuring a very red, white, blue and well-armed youth.
And how about this lot to accompany our youth; The Youth’s Companion, Thanksgiving Number for 1905.
Onward...
Jumping ahead 7 years with the same title, we have a softer, better rouged youth’s companion.
“The starlight’s cheery gleam, the moonlight’s calm,” a B&W, angelic companion for a woman, January 1901.
I am not sure what this January 1905 edition of Good Housekeeping is depicting, a housewife stealing away into the night on ice skates, clutching her pillow?
That’s bizarre, there’s only one ‘a’ in Bazar:
SVA Library Picture & Periodicals Collections 