The Poster at the Modern: A Brief History Author(s): Christopher Lyon Reviewed work(s): Source: MoMA, No.

48 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1-2 Published by: The Museum of Modern Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4381045 . Accessed: 02/10/2012 10:53
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This summer,THEMODERN POSTER (throughSeptember6) presents over threehundred worksfrom the collection of TheMuseumof ModernArt. The exhibition,organizedby Stuart Wrede,Director,Departmentof Architecture and Design, is thefirst comprehensive survey of the collection in twentyyears. Wrede's essay in thepublicationaccompanying the exhibitiondescribes the role of theposter in the overall developmentof modernart. The history of the poster at the Museumitself;examinedin this issue of MoMA, provides insights into the Museum'sown development. TheMuseumwasfounded in a period "whena reevaluationof Western artistic sensibilities was takingplace in all the arts" Wredewrites. "Notonly was the new art seen as inseparablefrom the social and industrialchanges of the day, but there was an unprecedented cross-fertilizationamong the variousmediums:" Posters, which demonstratedthis process, fascinated AlfredH. Barr,Jr.,founding directorof the Museum. "Theposter," Wredecontinues, "a mediumof its time, has always existed at thejunction of thefine and applied arts, cultureand commerce.... Its approximately one-hundred-year history coincides with that of modernart itself."
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HerbertBayer'sposter Kandinsky on His Sixtieth Birthday (1926) is an exampleof Bauhausgraphic design that was acquiredby AlfredBarr and JereAbbottin Dessau in 1927.

The prehistory,so to speak, of the poster at The Museumof Modem Art begins several years before the Museum'sfoundingin 1929. In Januaryof 1927, Alfred Barrintroducedat Wellesley College a course in modem art, the firstin any college to deal not only with paintingand sculpturebut with graphicdesign, photography, music, film, and architecture.Of the graphicarts, Barrwrote, 'Advertisingis the happyhunting groundof this group,showing how the modem pictorialstyle has filteredinto the ordinaryenvironmentof life" The following July, Barr sailed for London to begin a twelve-monthtourof Europe on a travelingscholarshiparranged by Paul J. Sachs, a professorat Harvard whose famous museumcourse Barr attended. In October,Barrwas joined by his friend JereAbbott, who would soon become Associate Directorof the new Museum of Modem Art. After visiting Holland, they travelledto Dessau, in Germany, and spent four days at the Bauhaus. On the day after Christmas,they arrived in Moscow. They remainedin the Soviet Union for nearly two months. Philip Johnson, who met Barrin 1929, would become the foundingdirectorof the Museum'sDepartmentof Architecturein 1932. The experience of the Soviet Union was a "key" one, Johnsonsays, for the developmentof Barr'sconcept of the interrelatednessof the arts that foundexpression in his programfor the Museum:"The Constructivistswere on his mind all the time. Malevich was to him, and later to me, the greatest artistof the period. And,

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you see, the Constructivistswere crossdisciplinary,and I'm sure that influenced Alfred Barr,both that and the Bauhaus. When Alfred was in Russia in the twenties, the posters were new, the films-the greatest films ever done -were still new ... [the experience] got him interestedin a museum that would cross the lines" In Russia, Barrand Abbott met such artists as El Lissitzky andAlexander Rodchenko, with his wife, Varvara Stepanova(these three on the same day). They met Sergei Eisenstein and saw four reels of his film October(1928), made for the tenth anniversaryof the RussianRevolution. Among the posters they brought back is 1917 (1927) by YakovGuminer,included in this summer'sexhibition, which presentsa photomontageof stills from Eisenstein's famous film. Barr and Abbott visited three times the Moscow art school known as Vkhutein, an acronymfrom the Russianname for the Higher State Art-TechnicalInstitute,where Lissitzky, VladimirTatlin, and Rodchenko all taught. Similarin conception to the Bauhaus, it included departmentsof printing, typography,and graphicarts. They also met with KonstantinUmansky,head of TASS, the foreign news commission. Barr asked for his ideas about a proletarian art. Umansky,he noted, "repeatedthe commonplace that the variousmodem movements were far beyond the grasp of the proletariatand then suggested that a proletarianstyle was emergingfrom the wall newspaperwith its combinedtext, poster, and photomontage;'a suggestion which Barr found "interestingand acute:' Barrresumedteaching at Wellesley in the autumnof 1928 and the following springmountedan exhibition, titled EUROPEAN POSTERS ANDCOMMODERN at the Wellesley MERCIAL TYPOGRAPHY, College Art Museum (May 2-22, 1929). This was only the second exhibitionBarr had organized. It was accompaniedby wall labels that not only identifiedthe items but explainedthe subject, if necessary, and related the works to developmentsin modem painting. A poster by E. McKnightKauffer for the LondonUnderground,for example, was said to correspondto "the thirdphase of cubism (c. 1915)' suggesting thatBarr had yet to formulatethe classic two-stage model of Cubistdevelopmentestablished by his 1936 Museum exhibitionCUBISM
AND ABSTRACT ART.

Right to left: AlfredH. Barr,Jr., JereAbbott, and their guide Piotr in Moscow,1928, picturedon a souvenirpostcard.

College News of May 2, 1929, makes the point, which Barrrepeatedly stressed, that posters demonstratethe connection between modem art and "the utilitarianends of modem life:"They are said to embody the principlesof modem movementsin paintingand also to reflect national temperament.The Russianposters, for example, which "embody cubistic principles"' are "morevirile, perhapsbecause their aim is nationalisticratherthan hedonistic" The writerconcludes by speculating about the "sluggish" developmentof poster art in the United States: "Is it that we do not demandand hence necessitate the merging of the fine arts with the economic and social ends of our age? Are we too materialistic -or too unadventurous?" Whoeverthe authormay have been, the provocativevoice of Barr is heardin the question. Duringthe Museum'sfirstfifteen years, poster activity flourishedunderthe leadershipof Barr,who in 1929 became the inauguraldirector.In 1933, two poster competitions were conductedby the newly establishedDepartmentof Architecture, the firstfor New Yorkhigh school students and the second a typographyexhibitionfor which more than five hundredworkswere submittedfrom aroundthe country. The firstpublishedposters formally acquiredfor the collection included a gift from Mr. and Mrs. StanleyResor of twenty-threeadvertisingposters by A. M. Cassandre.These were the basis for the 1936 exhibitionPOSTERS BY CASSANDRE, for which the artistdesigned the catalogue's cover, featuringthe image of a
(continuedon next page)

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This is the Enemy (1942), by VictorAncona and Karl Koehler,was a winning entry in the Museum's 1942 National WarPoster Competition.

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Constantine organizeda wealthof poster exhibitions through the 1960s,beginning with an exhibitionon the subjectof combatting polio. A select groupof designers, photographers, painters,andsculptors were invitedto workon thisproject,among themDavidSmith,who did a medallionof St. Georgefightingthe polio dragon. Constantine'sinnovativeshow of New YorkTimes posters (1952), which she installed outdoorsin the Museum'ssculpture garden,explored "how a newspaper,which is one visual, graphicmedium, could use anothergraphicmedium:" Constantinealso selected posters for the Museum'stwentieth-anniversary exhibition, the 1953
MODERN ARTIN YOURLIFE.

El Lissitzky.USSR Russische Ausstellung (Russian Exhibition).1929. Gravure.Gift of Philip Johnson, Jan Tschichold Collection.

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youth whose eye is pierced by an arrow symbolizing the message of the poster. Curator ErnestineM. Fantl, organizerof the Cassandreexhibition, observed thathis designs, which occupy a prominentplace in this summer'sexhibition, avoid the formulas of Americanadvertising, which is based on sex appeal, statistics, and fear. His railwayand steamshipposters, she wrote, "merelygive you the excitement and magic of travel:' In the summerof 1936, Fantlvisited the LondonPassengerTransport Board, where she selected sixty-threeposters for the Museum's collection, a numberof which were includedin the 1937 exhibitionPOSTERS BY E. McKNIGHT KAUFFER. In a foreword to the McKnightKauffercatalogue, which also featureda cover designed by the artist, Aldous Huxley remarkedthat Kauffer avoided appeals to "extraneousmatters' like sex and snobbery.Instead, the artist preferred"themore difficulttask of advertising productsin terms of forms that are symbolic only of these particular products. Thus, forms symbolical of mechanical power are used to advertisepowerful machines. . . " Commentslike these by Fantl and Huxley, critical of conventionaladvertising, confirmthatthe Museumdid not simply presentexamplesof "good design"' but promotedfundamental alternativesto the prevailingvisual culture. Also in 1936, the landmark exhibition CUBISM AND ABSTRACT ART opened at the Museum. It was, wrote IrvingSandler, "Barr'skind of show, encompassingpainting, sculpture,construction,photography, architecture,theater,films, posters, and typography:" Approximatelya dozen posters were included, as well as otherexamples of typographyinfluencedby developments in modernart. During WorldWarII, posters became a vital mediumfor propaganda in the United States. In the early forties, the Museum held three poster competitions in support of the war effort. The NationalWarPoster Competitionof 1942 featuredtwo hundred works selected from 2,224 entries from aroundthe nation. The Museumgave the public the opportunityto participateby providingballots and polling visitors on

which poster they liked best, which poster made them wantto do more to help win the war,and whethertherewas an important idea that they did not see represented. PresidentRoosevelt congratulatedthe artists: "It is proof of what can be done by groups whose ordinaryoccupations might seem far removedfrom war" In Art in Progress, a publicationaccompanying the Museum'sfifteenth-anniversary exhibition, MonroeWheeler,then directorof exhibitions, noted that the Museum had acquired, by 1944, "an admirable collection of nearly five hundred posters:' In fact, theremay have been a great many more posters in the collection at that time, and curatorswere becoming alarmedby the deteriorationof some items, poor storageconditions, and inadequate or nonexistentcataloguing. The problemswere aggravatedby the failureto locate the collection within one department and by a lack of funding. In 1949, MildredConstantinewas appointed AssistantCuratorin the newly designated Departmentof Architectureand Design, which was to have responsibility for the poster collection (the departments of Film and of Prints and IllustratedBooks retainresponsibilityfor specialized areas of the collection). On a recent morning, Constantinedescribed her initial effort to assess the role of the poster collection. Her modest apartment'sharmonyof furnishings,art works, and books made it seem a cool refuge from the noisy midtownManhattan street below. She sat at a glass-topped work table, her imposing presence suggesting the determination she broughtto the task of giving shape to the Museum'sposter holdings. "Wasthere a clear conception of what the collection should be?" she had asked. "Whatkind of uses did it have within the Museum?" She researchedmajorprivatecollections, includingthat of JanTschichold. In 1937, an importantcollection of about seventy-five posters had been purchasedfrom Tschichold. It includedexamples done in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany,Czechoslovakia, Hungary,Switzerland,and the U.S.S.R. Tschichold, a distinguished

The culminatingposter exhibitionof her careerwas the 1968 WORDAND IMAGE,the firstcomprehensivesurveyof the history of posters and typographyin the modem period, organizedwith ArthurDrexler, then directorof the department.It was presented in a stunninginstallationin which many of the posters were in very deep frames, so that they appearedto be projecting themselves from the walls. In an essay in the exhibition catalogue, Alan Fernsuggested that the history of the traditional poster might be coming to an end. Ironically,the Museumalso presented, in thatunsettlingyear, a hastily organized response to the studentuprising in Paris, PARIS: MAY1968, POSTERS OF
THE STUDENT REVOLT.

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is the

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Since WORDAND IMAGE,poster exhibitions have been divided between ones devoted to individualartists, such as the 1985
POSTERS BY FRANCISZEK STAROWIEYSKI,

graphicdesigner,is representedin this summer'sexhibitionby typographicalposters of the 1930s whose spare, Constructivistinspireddesigns prefigurethe innovations of the postwar Swiss school. In 1949, Constantinerecommended a furtherpurchasefrom Tschichold of graphicmaterials, including additional posters. Complementingthis body of work
Installationview of the 1968 exhibitionWORDAND
IMAGE.

an examinationorganizedby Robert Coates of workby one of Poland'sforemost graphicdesigners, and surveysof recent acquisitions. In 1968, therewere some two thousandposters in the Museum'scollection. Since that time, the numberhas approximatelydoubled. More thantwo-thirds
of the works included in THE MODERN have been acquired since 1968. POSTER

Nelson Rockefellerand MildredConstantinebeside a poster installed in the Museumsculpturegardenfor the1952 New York Timesposter exhibition,

A. M. Cassandre'slittle Dubonnetman, his mostfamous creation (seenfilling himselfwith drinkin Dubo Dubon Dubonnet[1932]), has "the universalappeal of MickeyMouse" observedErnestine M. Fantl, organizer of the Museum's 1936 Cassandreexhibition.

Many individualshave helped make this growthpossible. Close to one hundred posters have been acquiredfor the Museum since 1980 with the supportof LeonardA. Lauder.Fifty-two of these are featuredin this summer'sexhibition. His contributions include such importantworks as Ludwig Hohlwein'sDeutsches Theater(1907) and Niklaus Stoecklin'sDer Buchdruck(1922). a1 StuartWredeconcludes his essay in the publicationaccompanyingthis summer's exhibitionwith the observationthat the poster "has provedto be a remarkably resilient medium, adaptingitself to a variety was the 1950 gift by BernardDavis, a Phil- of aesthetics and uses:"While it is no longer a primaryvehicle for commercial adelphiacollector and philanthropist, of advertising, it remainssignificant"as a Frenchand English work from the late medium that 1920s andearly 1930s. One of Constantine's reproduciblepopular-cultural can be used by all-from large institutions most importantcontributionswas her to small culturalor political movements initiation of a graphicarts exchangeprogram with the Libraryof Congress, where and individuals -to give visual expression to theirideas andbeliefs.... [The]posterat she had formerlyworked, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Stedelijk its best has been, andcontinuesto be, an social andartisticdocument' extraordinary Museum in Amsterdam,the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Glasgow -Christopher Lyon Instituteof Fine Arts. This program brought THE MODERN POSTER and its accompanymany fine posters into the collection. Constantineand JohnsonsharedBarr's ing publication have been supportedby a conviction that posters were both artistic generous grantfrom TheMay Department and historical documents. "Barrsaw the Additionalsupporthas Stores Company. been providedby the National Endowment poster two ways' she explained, "as reflective and informativeof the aesthetic for the Arts. and of the social and political era represented by it. Whatera did it come from, what country, and how did the artistreflect all the impulses that were going on at that time? Alfred was extremelyawareof these things:'
II II biJ.