Fantastic exhibition - Alexey Brodovitch: The First Art Director

I was very lucky to be able to visit two exhibitions at the Museum für Gestaltung (museum for decorative arts) here in Zurich this week, each with a guided tour with the respective curator, thanks to the organisation of the Swiss Textile Collection.

First up was Alexey Brodovitch (I'll be posting about the other exhibition separately). You'll probably ask Alexey who? But if you're into vintage fashion and ever looked into a vintage issue of Harper's Bazaar, you've seen some of his work... Born into a family belonging to the Russian nobility in 1898, he fled to Paris in 1920 and made himself a name as an illustrator and graphic designer, designing posters and ads for department stores, restaurants (like Prunier, who still uses his designs on menus etc.) and more. In 1930 he came to the US to teach, but also kept working as a graphic designer, and in 1934, Carmel Snow employed him as the first art director of Harper's Bazaar, where he revolutionized the look of fashion magazines and employed photographers like Richard Avedon.

Most of the exhibition was of course made up of the posters and some rare early illustrations and ads, some of which were actually originals, not copies (!!!), and then of course tons of examples of his work at Harper's Bazaar, grouped by different ideas.
There was also a big screen on which excerpts from the film Funny Face were shown - the art director character "Dovitch" is of course based on Brodovitch.



There was also a small selection of 1950s-60s dresses on show - basically as a bit of eye candy. The curator put it that way "my wife said - what, no clothes? I'm not going to see this." The dresses were loaned by the Swiss Textile Collection (and that's why they did the tour of course).


The gowns/ensembles are by (from left to right): Balenciaga, unknown, Dior, Atelier Winteler (a Zurich fashion salon), Givenchy, Dior, Balenciaga. Both Balenciagas, the red Dior and the Winteler dress are made of silk fabrics from Abraham, Zurich.



It's not a huge exhibition, but very well put together (thanks to the lock-down, the curator also had plenty of time to put it together), very interesting - and the curator was clearly very passionate about it and knew everything that is to know.
There's a little trailer video with the curator on the museum website: https://museum-gestaltung.ch/en/ausstellung/alexey-brodovitch-der-erste-art-director/ - it's in German, but it still gives a good overview of the exhibition.

 

That was the apex of magazine design. The designs (and photos, and clothes) just flew off the pages!