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Object Timeline
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Program, Twenty-Third Commencement program
This is a Program. It was graphic design by Alvin Lustig. It is dated 1939 and we acquired it in 2002. Its medium is letterpress on heavy paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
Like Paul Rand, Ladislav Sutnar, and Bradbury Thompson, Alvin Lustig (1915–1955) was an innovative pioneer in developing American graphic design during the 1940s and 1950s. Lustig’s early work in the late 1930s reflects his training with Frank Lloyd Wright. Lustig's subsequent work evolved to adapt the powerful, visual language of cubism, constructivism, Dada, the Bauhaus, surrealism, biomorphism, and abstraction to designs for book jackets, identity programs, record covers, and interiors. Tragically, he did not live beyond two decades of his promising career as a leading graphic designer and educator.
This book cover is part of a larger proposed gift of Lustig’s work that would immeasurably strengthen the museum’s graphic design representation from the 1930s through the 1950s, which currently includes works by E. M. Kauffer, Rand, Sutnar, Lester Beall, and World War II propaganda posters. It would also join Lustig works already in the collection, received in 1993 as a gift from his widow, graphic designer Elaine Lustig Cohen, which include book jacket designs for Meridian Books/Noonday Press and New Directions. Acquiring additional works by Lustig also increases the potential for a contextual understanding of graphic design objects by Cohen held in the museum’s collection; Cohen’s early graphic design career and design vision was greatly influenced by working with her first husband. Moreover, the Lustig gift would provide a broader representation of the visual vocabulary reflected in industrial design, textiles and wall coverings of the period.
Most of Lustig’s designs for paperback books, record covers, trade catalogues, announcements, invitations, letterhead do not survive in pristine condition—if they survive at all—because his designs were for ephemeral objects that were constantly used. This proposed gift is additionally desirable because it was preserved for more than four decades by Lustig’s sister, Susan Lustig Peck.
(December 17, 2001)
It is credited Gift of Susan Lustig Peck.
![The back cover of a square-format magazine with an abstract image in black, red and off-white in the reductive, Neoplasticist style inspired by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The simplified composition features horizontal and vertical red bars against a black background. Two parallel horizontal bars near the top third of the cover are accented with an off-white reveal, the top line with stylized, left-justified typography [H.Th.W.], for the architect and cover designer H. Th. Wijdeveld, and the adjacent line below with the year [1925] in between red vertical bars. Shorter red, parallel vertical bars of equal height and spacing line the bottom of the cover, which has a partial red border on the left and bottom. Six small round holes on the right margin are threaded with black string, ostensibly holding the periodical together. There are light signs of wear and tear along the edges.](https://images.collection.cooperhewitt.org/325965_363a11304e13f0d4_n.jpg "Object ID #1108722047")
- Object ID #1108722047
- lithograph print on paper.
- Smithsonian Libraries, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library, N5 .W469 folio.
- 43.2016.18
Its dimensions are
(Closed): 21.3 x 21.3 cm (8 3/8 x 8 3/8 in.) (Open): 21.3 x 42.5 cm (8 3/8 x 16 3/4 in.)
Cite this object as
Program, Twenty-Third Commencement program; Graphic design by Alvin Lustig (American, 1915–1955); USA; letterpress on heavy paper; (Closed): 21.3 x 21.3 cm (8 3/8 x 8 3/8 in.) (Open): 21.3 x 42.5 cm (8 3/8 x 16 3/4 in.); Gift of Susan Lustig Peck; 2001-29-1
