Alexey Brodovitch
Encyclopedia
Alexey Brodovitch was a Russia
n-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar
from 1938 to 1958.
, his family moved to Moscow
where his father worked in a hospital for Japanese prisoners. Alexey was sent to study at the Prince Tenisheff School, a prestigious institution in St. Petersburg, with the intentions of eventually enrolling in the Imperial Art Academy. He had no formal training in art through his childhood, but often sketched noble profiles in the audience at concerts in the city.
at the young age of 16, Brodovitch abandoned his dream of entering the Imperial Art Academy and ran away from home to join the Russian army
. Not long after, his father had him brought home and hired a private tutor to help Alexey finish school. Upon graduating, Brodovitch ran away again on several occasions. He recalls:
, Brodovitch served with the White Army. While fighting against the Bolsheviks in Odessa, he was badly wounded and was hospitalized for a time in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus
. In 1918, the town was surrounded by the Bolsheviks, forcing Brodovitch into exile. It was during this retreat to the south through Caucasus and Turkey that he met his future wife, Nina.
By good fortune, Alexey's brother Nicolas turned out to be one of the soldiers guarding the refugees in Novorosysk. Not long after, their father, who had been imprisoned in St. Petersburg by the Bolsheviks, managed to flee to Novorosysk in hopes of finding his family. The three were once again together, and arranged for Brodovitch's mother and other relations to join them in Constantinople
. Finally reunited, the Brodovitchs made their way to France.
, Brodovitch wanted to be a painter. A Russian émigré
in Paris, Brodovitch found himself poor and having to work for the first time in his life. He took a job painting houses, while his wife Nina worked as a seamstress. They lived in a cheap, small apartment in the area of Montparnasse
, among other Russian artists who had settled in Paris at the end of the 19th century. This group of artists, including Archipenko, Chagall, and Nathan Altman
, would meet at the inexpensive Académie Vassilieff, which offered painting and sculpting classes without an instructor. His connections with these young Russian artists led to more artistic work as a painter of backdrops for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Paris was a cosmopolitan city through which many artists and art movements passed. Brodovitch was exposed to everything from Dadaism from Zurich and Berlin, Suprematism
and Constructivism
from Moscow, Bauhaus
design from Germany, Futurism
from Italy, De Stijl
from Holland, and the native strains of Cubism
, Fauvism
, Purism
and Surrealism
. Among these various artistic influences, Brodovitch found his beginnings as a designer.
, an important art journal, and Arts et Métiers Graphiques, an influential design magazine. While working on layouts, Brodovitch was responsible for fitting together type, photographs, and illustrations on the pages of the magazines. He had the rare opportunity of having influence over the look of the magazine as there was no art director.
He gained public recognition for his work in the commercial arts by winning first prize in a poster competition for an artists' soiree called Le Bal Banal on March 24, 1924. The poster was exhibited on walls all over Montparnasse along with a drawing by Picasso, who took second place. Brodovitch remained proud of this poster throughout his career, always keeping a copy of it pinned to his studio wall. The graphic, light-to-dark inversion of its mask shape, type, and background suggest not only the process of photography, but also represents the process of trading one's identity for another when wearing a mask. It is the oldest surviving work by Brodovitch. He continued to gain recognition as an applied artist due to his success at the Paris International Exhibit of the Decorative Arts in 1925. He received five medals: three gold medals for kiosk design and jewelry, two silver medals for fabrics, and the top award for the Beck Fils pavilion "Amour de l'Art."
After these wins, Brodovitch's career as an applied artist took off. In 1928 he was hired by Athélia, the design studio of the Parisian department store Aux Trois Quartiers, to design and illustrate catalogues and advertisements for their luxury men's boutique, Madelios. Brodovitch was aware that many of the customers were fairly traditional in their tastes, so he balanced out his modern designs with classical Greek references.
Although employed full-time by Athélia, Brodovitch offered his service as a freelance designer on the side. He started his own studio, L'Atelier A.B. , where he produced posters for various clients, including Union Radio Paris and the Cunard shipping company. He was also commissioned by the Parisian publishing house La Pléiade to illustrate three books: Nouvelles by Alexander Pushkin, Contes Fantastiques by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Monsieur de Bougrelon by Jean Lorrain
.
Brodovitch embraced technical developments from the spheres of industrial design, photography, and contemporary painting. His broad curiosity began to assimilate the most interesting aspects of all these fields into his work, eventually making them his own. He later instilled this same curiosity in his students, encouraging them to use new techniques like the air brush, industrial lacquers, flexible steel needles, and surgical knives.
By the age of 32, Brodovitch had dabbled in producing posters, china, jewelry, textiles, advertisements, and paintings. Eventually specializing in advertising and graphic design, he had become one of the most respected designers of commercial art in Paris. By 1930, however, Paris had lost its luster for Brodovitch. The once-flourishing spirit of adventure and experimentation was fading away. Although he was offered many design positions, Brodovitch turned them down, presumably looking for new locales to advance his designs.
), was overwhelmed by Brodovitch's talents and asked him to head the school's Advertising Design Department. In September 1930, Brodovitch moved to Philadelphia with his wife and son to take the job. Brodovitch began teaching advertising design, creating a special department devoted to the subject.
Brodovitch's task was to bring American advertising design up to the level of Europe's, which was thought to have a far more modern spirit. Before his arrival, advertising students were simply copying the magazine styles of N. C. Wyeth
and Howard Pyle
. The illustrations were beautiful, but had evolved from the tradition of 19th-century romantic realism
, a thing of the past. Brodovitch's teaching technique, on the other hand, was unlike any other the students had been exposed to. He would always teach with a visual aid. Brodovitch would bring into class French and German magazines to examine the pages with his students, explaining the artist's work or technique. He would raise questions like, "Could this line be better? Could it be like, for example, Cocteau?" When not in the classroom, Brodovitch would take the class on outings around Philadelphia to see factories, laboratories, shopping centers, housing projects, dumps, and the zoo. The students were then told to make a "graphic impression" of what they had seen, whether a photographic interpretation, a drawing, or an abstraction. Brodovitch did not teach in the conventional sense, but rather compelled his students to discover one's inner, creative resources.
belief that you needed to educate the whole individual by directing his or her attention to a variety of modern solutions in their graphic projects. His course description for the Design Laboratory read:
The lab was split into two sections per week, one for design and one for photography. The workshops were immensely popular, and it was not unusual for more than sixty people to show up to his class on the first night. Among the photographers who attended his classes were Diane Arbus
, Eve Arnold
, Richard Avedon
, Lisette Model
, and Garry Winogrand
.
, New York. It was there that Carmel Snow
, the recently appointed editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, saw Brodovitch's work for the first time. She knew right away that Brodovitch would be the one to transform the magazine into a real revival of Vogue
, where she had started her career.
The offer was, of course, dependent on the approval of the owner of Harper's Bazaar, William Randolph Hearst
. Brodovitch eagerly returned to Philadelphia and assigned his students apprenticing at his Van Pelt Street studio to make two dummy issues of the magazine. He insisted that each page have a "shock value" of its own to set the magazine apart, "cutting paper dolls out of patterned paper, or illustration perfume bottles to look like high key photography - whatever was unlike other fashion magazines was tried." Although preferring more conservative design, Hearst put his trust in Carmel Snow and allowed her to take on Brodovitch as art director where he remained for 24 years.
The new look of Harper's Bazaar emphasized culture for its own sake. Taking advantage of Brodovitch's contacts in Europe
and his wide knowledge of photography, the magazine introduced the work of may artists and photographers to its American audience. Before starting at Harper's Bazaar, Brodovitch organized a return trip to France, hoping to convince old friends to work with him at the magazine. Each summer he would return to offer commissions to artists and photographers until 1939 when the start of World War II
made it impossible. By continually bringing in creative forces from overseas, he kept the magazine permanently fresh and cutting-edge. Among the artists that worked for Bazaar were Jean Cocteau
, Raoul Dufy
, Leonor Fini
, Marc Chagall
, Man Ray
and A. M. Cassandre, the most eminent poster artist in France at the time, replacing the former cover favorite, Erté.
Typically, Brodovitch would begin his layouts by designing the layouts as illustrations by hand. His assistant would receive these sketches to look over, but the photographers and freelance writers were often given little or no direction at all besides to come up with something new and unusual. When the photographs for the issue arrived, he would pick the most visually interesting and have a variety of sizes of reproductions made on a photostat machine
. From these, each spread would be made one at a time, then arranged among the others to create a well-paced magazine.
His style for the magazine was radically different than any of its contemporaries. Brodovitch wanted his spreads to be innovative and fresh. While other fashion magazines thought it important to show the whole garment, Brodovitch would crop images unexpectedly or off-center to bring a new dynamism to the layout. He used forms in the photographs or illustrations as a cue for how to handle the shape of the text. In his earlier layouts, he would arrange photographs like playing cards, splayed out on the page or in the shape of a fan. Later in his career, however, he abandoned this technique in favor of using only one or two images to a page. Surrealism
found its way onto the pages of the magazines in various experimental forms. For example, Brodovitch once used fashion photographs sent via radio from Paris
to New York
in blurry forms to communicate this new way of sharing information. Designs also included torn edges on photographs, or pages made to look as they had been torn through with a woman's figure stepping out of them. The motif of isolated body parts, another common Surrealist theme, could be seen on the covers and spreads of Harper's in the form of lips, hands, and eyes.
Brodovitch was sensitive to the fact that color was relatively new in magazines, with laborious preparation and high costs. By using process or second color inventively, Brodovitch was able to give the magazine an added sense of currency and luxury. He applied color to his layouts expressively, often choosing to use colors bolder than might be seen in the real world. Even after full-color reproduction became standard practice, he still used broad swaths of single colors for bold emphasis.
In terms of photography, Brodovitch had a distinct feel for what the magazine needed. He favored on-location fashion photography
as opposed to the studio shots normally used in other fashion publications. He urged his photographers to look for jarring juxtapositions in their images. One such spread features a woman in a full-length Dior
gown posed between two circus elephants. The cinematic effect, a trademark characteristic of his layouts, involved using photographs as if they were stills from a film. He would repeat a pose or a dress several times across a spread to give a narrative, temporal feeling. At times, Brodovitch would arbitrarily take a series of photographs and adopt a story line to go with them, as though recapping a movie. He was known to push this idea even further by adding film sprocket borders to photographs at times. Brodovitch also often emphasized spatial illusions, using type and photographs to create multiple perspectives within a space. The notion of mirroring and doubling also interested him, as can be seen in how he paired similar pictures on a spread or dividing halves of one image across the gutter of the page.
With this goal of story-telling, Harper's Bazaar can be seen as an example of a mediascape, in that Brodovitch was trying to construct a reality for the imaginations of the readers. He would create versions of small movie stills or spreads in which woman were supposed to see themselves rather than the model. For example, he would often use a model's silhouette rather than her whole form, or keep her face in shadow, so that any reader could place themselves in those fashions, leading a charmed life. The result would be a magazine of images "out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives."
Portfolio In 1949, Brodovitch collaborated in the production of the revolutionary publication Portfolio. It has been widely acknowledged as perhaps the definitive graphic design magazine of the twentieth century. The idea for the publication came from art director Frank Zachary. He wanted to put out a magazine that focused solely on art and design, but was at the same time an outstanding example of design itself. Brodovitch was intrigued by the concept. Although he enjoyed his work at Harper's Bazaar, the limitations of space and subject matter often cramped his creative style. Portfolio freed him from the practical and aesthetic restraints to which he had grown accustomed. The pages of the publication were space for his graphic imagination to run wild. George S. Rosenthal, whose family owned a printing company dedicated to mass-market pictorial paperbacks, signed on too.
With such great capital spent on publicity, Zachary and Rosenthal decided Portfolio would have to include advertising. Upon seeing the advertisements, however, they could not bear to ruin the look and feel of the publication by running them. It was decided that Portfolio would run without the aesthetic burden of advertising, freeing up more space for the overall design. Brodovitch was responsible for sorting through the articles and illustrations to create the spreads. Zachary described watching Brodovitch in action:
Inside Portfolio, Brodovitch promoted features devoted to respected artists and designers, contributed articles on vernacular design, and made wildly imaginative layouts. The magazine encompassed an array of subject matter and design styles. Works of great French poets were interspersed with off-beat articles about graffiti
by hobos. It was a beautifully composed mix-up of all things art. Unfortunately, the publication lasted only three issues. The no-expense-spared ethos of the magazine, paired with the lack of advertising, caused the magazine to quickly fold.
companies, including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
, during their visits to New York on world tours. Although at the time he claimed the photos were only meant to be souvenirs, they evolved into something greater. The style in which Brodovitch photographed deviated from the sharp, straight photography
popular at the time. According to one colleague, his images "spat in the face of technique and pointed out a new way in which photographers could work."
Brodovitch released a book of these photographs in 1945, titled simply Ballet, through a small New York publisher. The book contains 104 photographs of several ballets and is divided into eleven segments, one for each ballet performance. On the contents page, Brodovitch introduces each chapter in a typographic style that emulates the feel of the dance it is describing. He photographed with a Contax
35mm camera, no flash, and with a slow film speed. The blurred figures of the dancers allow the viewer to not only feel the music, but also to follow the line of the dancer's limbs mid-step. The images beautifully capture the atmosphere on-stage, the frenzied behind-the-scenes action backstage, and the magical moments of the ballet. By bleeding the blurred, grainy pictures off the pages and into the gutters, he communicated the emotional impact of the dance without words.
and commentary by Truman Capote
, both regular contributors to Harper's Bazaar. In Observations, each spread shifts between pages of silhouetted images and pages of rectangular blocks of images and text, framed by ample stretches of white space. Although simple and elegant, the layout of the book has an enormous amount of visual variety.
over the death of his wife, Nina. Over the next two years, Brodovitch was sent to various hospitals on numerous occasions to cure his worsening depression and alcoholism
. Throughout these hospital stays, however, Brodovitch had an incessant desire to start new projects. At one point, he began compiling an autobiography, but it was never put together. Brodovitch received a small Minox
camera from an old student, Ben Rose
, visiting him at Manhattan State Hospital
. He slipped the camera in an old box of Pall Mall cigarettes and discretely began to photograph his fellow patients. Brodovitch would often decide to discharge himself before the treatments had run course. He was so ill, however, that he would be back before the end of the day.
With no pension or regular salary from Harper's Bazaar, Brodovitch was faced with mounting hospital bills. He often lost the little freelance work he was able to scrounge up due to his unwillingness to compromise with the clients. Poor health left him unable to show up to the Design Laboratory workshops on a regular basis. When Brodovitch stopped coming all together, a few students halfheartedly tried to keep the class going in his honor. Without its creator, though, the Lab came to an end.
In 1966, Brodovitch fell and broke his hip. Physically and financially in a poor state, he moved back to France with his son Nikita to be closer to his many relatives. Two years later, he relocated to Le Thor
, a small village even closer to his family in Avignon
. He died three years later at age 73.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
from 1938 to 1958.
Early life in Russia
Alexey Brodovitch was born in Ogolitch, Russia to a wealthy family in 1898. His father, Cheslav Brodovitch, was a respected physician, psychiatrist and huntsman. His mother was an amateur painter. During the Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, his family moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
where his father worked in a hospital for Japanese prisoners. Alexey was sent to study at the Prince Tenisheff School, a prestigious institution in St. Petersburg, with the intentions of eventually enrolling in the Imperial Art Academy. He had no formal training in art through his childhood, but often sketched noble profiles in the audience at concerts in the city.
Military career
At the start of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
at the young age of 16, Brodovitch abandoned his dream of entering the Imperial Art Academy and ran away from home to join the Russian army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
. Not long after, his father had him brought home and hired a private tutor to help Alexey finish school. Upon graduating, Brodovitch ran away again on several occasions. He recalls:
After a week or so I ran away to the front line to kill Germans. But my father, now a military general at the head of a Red Cross hospital train, had plenty of influence, and I was soon brought back to him. On the train back I was employed as a nurses' aid. In East Prussia I ran away again and joined a nearby regiment. Once again I was caught, and this time I was sent to an officers' school, the Corps de Pages.During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, Brodovitch served with the White Army. While fighting against the Bolsheviks in Odessa, he was badly wounded and was hospitalized for a time in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
. In 1918, the town was surrounded by the Bolsheviks, forcing Brodovitch into exile. It was during this retreat to the south through Caucasus and Turkey that he met his future wife, Nina.
By good fortune, Alexey's brother Nicolas turned out to be one of the soldiers guarding the refugees in Novorosysk. Not long after, their father, who had been imprisoned in St. Petersburg by the Bolsheviks, managed to flee to Novorosysk in hopes of finding his family. The three were once again together, and arranged for Brodovitch's mother and other relations to join them in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. Finally reunited, the Brodovitchs made their way to France.
An émigré
Upon arriving in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Brodovitch wanted to be a painter. A Russian émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
in Paris, Brodovitch found himself poor and having to work for the first time in his life. He took a job painting houses, while his wife Nina worked as a seamstress. They lived in a cheap, small apartment in the area of Montparnasse
Montparnasse
Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...
, among other Russian artists who had settled in Paris at the end of the 19th century. This group of artists, including Archipenko, Chagall, and Nathan Altman
Nathan Altman
Nathan Isaevich Altman was a Jewish, Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist, Cubist painter, stage designer and book illustrator who was born, grew up and began his art studies in Ukraine, Russian Empire.-Early life:He was born in Vinnytsia, Russian Empire to a family of Russian...
, would meet at the inexpensive Académie Vassilieff, which offered painting and sculpting classes without an instructor. His connections with these young Russian artists led to more artistic work as a painter of backdrops for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Paris was a cosmopolitan city through which many artists and art movements passed. Brodovitch was exposed to everything from Dadaism from Zurich and Berlin, Suprematism
Suprematism
Suprematism was an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. It was not until later that suprematism received conventional museum preparations...
and Constructivism
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
from Moscow, Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
design from Germany, Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
from Italy, De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
from Holland, and the native strains of Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, Fauvism
Fauvism
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
, Purism
Purism
Purism was a form of Cubism advocated by the French painter Amédée Ozenfant and the architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret . Purism rejected the decorative trend of cubism and advocated a return to clear, ordered forms that were expressive of the modern machine age as documented in their 1918 book...
and Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Among these various artistic influences, Brodovitch found his beginnings as a designer.
The move to graphic arts
On nights and weekends away from the Ballets Russes, Brodovitch began sketching designs for textiles, china, and jewelry. By the time his work for the ballet had finished, he had already compiled an extensive portfolio of these side projects and was selling his designs to fashionable shops. He worked part-time doing layouts for Cahiers d'ArtCahiers d'art
Cahiers d'Art was a French artistic and literary magazine founded in 1926 by Christian Zervos. Zervos published it until 1960. Cahiers d'Art has also become an eponymous publishing house which published many monographs on French artists living in France in the first half of the twentieth century...
, an important art journal, and Arts et Métiers Graphiques, an influential design magazine. While working on layouts, Brodovitch was responsible for fitting together type, photographs, and illustrations on the pages of the magazines. He had the rare opportunity of having influence over the look of the magazine as there was no art director.
He gained public recognition for his work in the commercial arts by winning first prize in a poster competition for an artists' soiree called Le Bal Banal on March 24, 1924. The poster was exhibited on walls all over Montparnasse along with a drawing by Picasso, who took second place. Brodovitch remained proud of this poster throughout his career, always keeping a copy of it pinned to his studio wall. The graphic, light-to-dark inversion of its mask shape, type, and background suggest not only the process of photography, but also represents the process of trading one's identity for another when wearing a mask. It is the oldest surviving work by Brodovitch. He continued to gain recognition as an applied artist due to his success at the Paris International Exhibit of the Decorative Arts in 1925. He received five medals: three gold medals for kiosk design and jewelry, two silver medals for fabrics, and the top award for the Beck Fils pavilion "Amour de l'Art."
After these wins, Brodovitch's career as an applied artist took off. In 1928 he was hired by Athélia, the design studio of the Parisian department store Aux Trois Quartiers, to design and illustrate catalogues and advertisements for their luxury men's boutique, Madelios. Brodovitch was aware that many of the customers were fairly traditional in their tastes, so he balanced out his modern designs with classical Greek references.
Although employed full-time by Athélia, Brodovitch offered his service as a freelance designer on the side. He started his own studio, L'Atelier A.B. , where he produced posters for various clients, including Union Radio Paris and the Cunard shipping company. He was also commissioned by the Parisian publishing house La Pléiade to illustrate three books: Nouvelles by Alexander Pushkin, Contes Fantastiques by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Monsieur de Bougrelon by Jean Lorrain
Jean Lorrain
Jean Lorrain , born Paul Duval, was a French poet and novelist of the Symbolist school....
.
Brodovitch embraced technical developments from the spheres of industrial design, photography, and contemporary painting. His broad curiosity began to assimilate the most interesting aspects of all these fields into his work, eventually making them his own. He later instilled this same curiosity in his students, encouraging them to use new techniques like the air brush, industrial lacquers, flexible steel needles, and surgical knives.
By the age of 32, Brodovitch had dabbled in producing posters, china, jewelry, textiles, advertisements, and paintings. Eventually specializing in advertising and graphic design, he had become one of the most respected designers of commercial art in Paris. By 1930, however, Paris had lost its luster for Brodovitch. The once-flourishing spirit of adventure and experimentation was fading away. Although he was offered many design positions, Brodovitch turned them down, presumably looking for new locales to advance his designs.
A new approach to teaching
While still living in Paris, Brodovitch was offered a job by John Story Jenks, the father of a young girl Brodovitch had shown around the arts scene in Paris. Jenks, a trustee of the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (currently the University of the ArtsUniversity of the Arts (Philadelphia)
The University of the Arts is one of the United States' oldest universities dedicated to the arts. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia...
), was overwhelmed by Brodovitch's talents and asked him to head the school's Advertising Design Department. In September 1930, Brodovitch moved to Philadelphia with his wife and son to take the job. Brodovitch began teaching advertising design, creating a special department devoted to the subject.
Brodovitch's task was to bring American advertising design up to the level of Europe's, which was thought to have a far more modern spirit. Before his arrival, advertising students were simply copying the magazine styles of N. C. Wyeth
N. C. Wyeth
Newell Convers Wyeth , known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. He was the pupil of artist Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators...
and Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
. The illustrations were beautiful, but had evolved from the tradition of 19th-century romantic realism
Romantic realism
Romantic realism is an aesthetic term that usually refers to art which combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another....
, a thing of the past. Brodovitch's teaching technique, on the other hand, was unlike any other the students had been exposed to. He would always teach with a visual aid. Brodovitch would bring into class French and German magazines to examine the pages with his students, explaining the artist's work or technique. He would raise questions like, "Could this line be better? Could it be like, for example, Cocteau?" When not in the classroom, Brodovitch would take the class on outings around Philadelphia to see factories, laboratories, shopping centers, housing projects, dumps, and the zoo. The students were then told to make a "graphic impression" of what they had seen, whether a photographic interpretation, a drawing, or an abstraction. Brodovitch did not teach in the conventional sense, but rather compelled his students to discover one's inner, creative resources.
Design laboratory
In 1933, Brodovitch added the Design Laboratory to the classes he offered. It was meant to be a workshop for his advanced students who wanted to experiment with all aspects of design. Brodovitch shared the BauhausBauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
belief that you needed to educate the whole individual by directing his or her attention to a variety of modern solutions in their graphic projects. His course description for the Design Laboratory read:
The aim of the course is to help the student to discover his individuality, crystallize his taste, and develop his feeling for the contemporary trend by stimulating his sense of invention and perfecting his technical ability. The course is conducted as an experimental laboratory, inspired by the ever-changing tempo of life, discovery of new techniques, new fields of operation...in close contact with current problems of leading magazines, department stores, advertising agencies and manufactures. Subjects include design, layout, type, poster, reportage, illustration, magazine make-up, package and product design, display, styling, art directing.
The lab was split into two sections per week, one for design and one for photography. The workshops were immensely popular, and it was not unusual for more than sixty people to show up to his class on the first night. Among the photographers who attended his classes were Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid.....
, Eve Arnold
Eve Arnold
Eve Arnold, FRPS is an American photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957....
, Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
, Lisette Model
Lisette Model
Lisette Model was an Austrian-born American photographer.Lisette Model was born Elise Felic Amelie Stern in Vienna, Austria...
, and Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand was a street photographer known for his portrayal of America in the mid-20th century. John Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation....
.
Students on Brodovitch
- "He taught me to be intolerant of mediocrity. He taught me to worship the unknown." - Art KaneArt KaneArt Kane , born Arthur Kanofsky in New York City, was a fashion and music photographer active from the 1950s through early 1990s...
, fashion and music photographer - "I learned from him that if, when you look in your camera, you see an image you have ever seen before, don't click the shutter." - HiroHiro (photographer)Yasuhiro Wakabayashi, professionally known as Hiro, is an American commercial photographer. He was born in Shanghai in 1930 to Japanese parents...
, fashion photographer
Notable students
Graduates of these early courses went on to prominent careers in the field. Brodovitch's department came to be known as a 'prep school' for agencies and magazines around the country.- Richard AvedonRichard AvedonRichard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
- Marvin IsraelMarvin IsraelMarvin Israel , was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Bessie and Harry Israel. He was an American artist, photographer, painter, teacher and art director from New York known for modern/surreal interiors, abstract imagery. Created sinister shadowy and exuberant interiors with implications of...
- Lillian BassmanLillian Bassman- Life :Her parents were Jewish intellectuals who emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1905 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. She studied at the Textile High School, with Alexey Brodovitch, in Manhattan and graduated in 1933...
- Paul Himmel
- HiroHiro (photographer)Yasuhiro Wakabayashi, professionally known as Hiro, is an American commercial photographer. He was born in Shanghai in 1930 to Japanese parents...
- Roy Faulconer
- Mary Fullerton, assistant to Brodovitch at Harper's BazaarHarper's BazaarHarper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
and art director of MademoiselleMademoiselle (magazine)Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications.... - Stewart Graves
- Joseph Gering, Brides
- Robert Greenwell, art director of RCA RecordsRCA RecordsRCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
- Nelson Gruppo, art director at Stage, Promenade, and This Week
- Joe Jones, House BeautifulHouse BeautifulHouse Beautiful is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who purchased it in 1934...
- Elizabeth Lovett
- Allan Porter, editor in chief CameraCamera (magazine)Camera was a photography review that began its life in Lucerne, Switzerland, later distributed in many countries and languages. The magazine grew to its greatest international influence towards in latter half of its life of sixty years; on the leading edge of almost every important period in...
magazine - Alfred Lowrey, art director at Good HousekeepingGood HousekeepingGood Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
, American Weekly, and NewsweekNewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence... - Ed Schartzer, with N. W. Ayer and Son
- David Steck, Life Magazine
- Victor Trasoff, art director of CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
- Irving PennIrving PennIrving Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.-Early career:Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from which he was graduated in 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he...
Vogue Magazine - Ted Croner
- Arthur Boden, art director at IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Harper's Bazaar
In spring of 1934, the Art Directors Club of New York asked Brodovitch to design their "13th Annual Art Directors Exhibition" at the Rockefeller CenterRockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
, New York. It was there that Carmel Snow
Carmel Snow
Carmel Snow was the influential editor of the American edition of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 and, after her retirement, the chairman of the magazine's editorial board.-Family:...
, the recently appointed editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, saw Brodovitch's work for the first time. She knew right away that Brodovitch would be the one to transform the magazine into a real revival of Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, where she had started her career.
I saw a fresh, new conception of layout technique that struck me like a revelation: pages that "bled" beautifully cropped photographs, typography and design that were bold and arresting. Within ten minutes I had asked Brodovitch to have cocktails with me, and that evening I signed him to a provisional contract as art director.
The offer was, of course, dependent on the approval of the owner of Harper's Bazaar, William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
. Brodovitch eagerly returned to Philadelphia and assigned his students apprenticing at his Van Pelt Street studio to make two dummy issues of the magazine. He insisted that each page have a "shock value" of its own to set the magazine apart, "cutting paper dolls out of patterned paper, or illustration perfume bottles to look like high key photography - whatever was unlike other fashion magazines was tried." Although preferring more conservative design, Hearst put his trust in Carmel Snow and allowed her to take on Brodovitch as art director where he remained for 24 years.
The new look of Harper's Bazaar emphasized culture for its own sake. Taking advantage of Brodovitch's contacts in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and his wide knowledge of photography, the magazine introduced the work of may artists and photographers to its American audience. Before starting at Harper's Bazaar, Brodovitch organized a return trip to France, hoping to convince old friends to work with him at the magazine. Each summer he would return to offer commissions to artists and photographers until 1939 when the start of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
made it impossible. By continually bringing in creative forces from overseas, he kept the magazine permanently fresh and cutting-edge. Among the artists that worked for Bazaar were Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
, Leonor Fini
Leonor Fini
Leonor Fini was an Argentine surrealist painter.-Life and work:Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was raised in Trieste, Italy. She moved to Milan at the age of 17, and then to Paris, in either 1931 or 1932...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
and A. M. Cassandre, the most eminent poster artist in France at the time, replacing the former cover favorite, Erté.
The style of Harper's
To those who worked with him at Azar, the pinnacle of Brodovitch's career as a designer was the unfailing elegance of his pages. This elegance, combined with an element of innovation was the ideal mix for a fashion magazine. The quality that guaranteed his success was his devotion to the new, unending surprise and vitality. Frances MacFadden, Bazaars managing editor for much of Brodovitch's tenure, explained his working method:It was a pleasure to watch him work. He was so swift and sure. In emergencies, like the time the Clipper bearing the report of the Paris Collections was held up in Bermuda, his speed was dazzling. A quick splash or two on the cutting board, a minute's juggling of the photostats, a slather of art gum, and the sixteen pages were complete. His layouts, of course, were the despair of copywriters whose cherished tone poems on girdles or minks had to be sacrificed to his sacred white space. Just before we went to press, all the layouts were laid out in sequence on Carmel Snow's floor, and there, under his eye, re-arranged until the rhythm of the magazine suited him.
Typically, Brodovitch would begin his layouts by designing the layouts as illustrations by hand. His assistant would receive these sketches to look over, but the photographers and freelance writers were often given little or no direction at all besides to come up with something new and unusual. When the photographs for the issue arrived, he would pick the most visually interesting and have a variety of sizes of reproductions made on a photostat machine
Photostat machine
The Photostat machine, or Photostat, was an early projection photocopier created in the 1900s by the Photostat Corporation; "Photostat" - which was originally a trademark of the company - is also used to refer to the similar machines produced by the Rectigraph Company.-Background:The growth of...
. From these, each spread would be made one at a time, then arranged among the others to create a well-paced magazine.
His style for the magazine was radically different than any of its contemporaries. Brodovitch wanted his spreads to be innovative and fresh. While other fashion magazines thought it important to show the whole garment, Brodovitch would crop images unexpectedly or off-center to bring a new dynamism to the layout. He used forms in the photographs or illustrations as a cue for how to handle the shape of the text. In his earlier layouts, he would arrange photographs like playing cards, splayed out on the page or in the shape of a fan. Later in his career, however, he abandoned this technique in favor of using only one or two images to a page. Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
found its way onto the pages of the magazines in various experimental forms. For example, Brodovitch once used fashion photographs sent via radio from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in blurry forms to communicate this new way of sharing information. Designs also included torn edges on photographs, or pages made to look as they had been torn through with a woman's figure stepping out of them. The motif of isolated body parts, another common Surrealist theme, could be seen on the covers and spreads of Harper's in the form of lips, hands, and eyes.
Brodovitch was sensitive to the fact that color was relatively new in magazines, with laborious preparation and high costs. By using process or second color inventively, Brodovitch was able to give the magazine an added sense of currency and luxury. He applied color to his layouts expressively, often choosing to use colors bolder than might be seen in the real world. Even after full-color reproduction became standard practice, he still used broad swaths of single colors for bold emphasis.
In terms of photography, Brodovitch had a distinct feel for what the magazine needed. He favored on-location fashion photography
Fashion photography
Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle...
as opposed to the studio shots normally used in other fashion publications. He urged his photographers to look for jarring juxtapositions in their images. One such spread features a woman in a full-length Dior
Dior
Dior can mean:* Christian Dior SA, a French clothing retailer* In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth legendarium:**Dior Eluchíl, a Half-elven of the First Age**Dior , a Steward of GondorDior is a surname, and may refer to:...
gown posed between two circus elephants. The cinematic effect, a trademark characteristic of his layouts, involved using photographs as if they were stills from a film. He would repeat a pose or a dress several times across a spread to give a narrative, temporal feeling. At times, Brodovitch would arbitrarily take a series of photographs and adopt a story line to go with them, as though recapping a movie. He was known to push this idea even further by adding film sprocket borders to photographs at times. Brodovitch also often emphasized spatial illusions, using type and photographs to create multiple perspectives within a space. The notion of mirroring and doubling also interested him, as can be seen in how he paired similar pictures on a spread or dividing halves of one image across the gutter of the page.
With this goal of story-telling, Harper's Bazaar can be seen as an example of a mediascape, in that Brodovitch was trying to construct a reality for the imaginations of the readers. He would create versions of small movie stills or spreads in which woman were supposed to see themselves rather than the model. For example, he would often use a model's silhouette rather than her whole form, or keep her face in shadow, so that any reader could place themselves in those fashions, leading a charmed life. The result would be a magazine of images "out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives."
Typeface
Brodovitch designed his own typeface in 1949. "Al-Bro", an abbreviation of his name, has broad and narrow strokes inspired by the symbols of musical notation. A layout showcasing the typeface was included in Portfolio #1, winter 1950.Portfolio In 1949, Brodovitch collaborated in the production of the revolutionary publication Portfolio. It has been widely acknowledged as perhaps the definitive graphic design magazine of the twentieth century. The idea for the publication came from art director Frank Zachary. He wanted to put out a magazine that focused solely on art and design, but was at the same time an outstanding example of design itself. Brodovitch was intrigued by the concept. Although he enjoyed his work at Harper's Bazaar, the limitations of space and subject matter often cramped his creative style. Portfolio freed him from the practical and aesthetic restraints to which he had grown accustomed. The pages of the publication were space for his graphic imagination to run wild. George S. Rosenthal, whose family owned a printing company dedicated to mass-market pictorial paperbacks, signed on too.
With such great capital spent on publicity, Zachary and Rosenthal decided Portfolio would have to include advertising. Upon seeing the advertisements, however, they could not bear to ruin the look and feel of the publication by running them. It was decided that Portfolio would run without the aesthetic burden of advertising, freeing up more space for the overall design. Brodovitch was responsible for sorting through the articles and illustrations to create the spreads. Zachary described watching Brodovitch in action:
He'd go through the stuff fast, really fast, and pick out always the right thing, you know, and then he would mark it up [for copying], an inch, inch and a half, two and a half inches... But anyhow, I'd go back to see him, he'd have these dam[n] 'stats all over the floor, ankle deep in them, and he would look around, pick one up, until there were six or eight or ten and then he'd lay them out and it worked... that was the magic of it, you know?"
Inside Portfolio, Brodovitch promoted features devoted to respected artists and designers, contributed articles on vernacular design, and made wildly imaginative layouts. The magazine encompassed an array of subject matter and design styles. Works of great French poets were interspersed with off-beat articles about graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
by hobos. It was a beautifully composed mix-up of all things art. Unfortunately, the publication lasted only three issues. The no-expense-spared ethos of the magazine, paired with the lack of advertising, caused the magazine to quickly fold.
Ballet
Between 1935 and 1937, Brodovitch photographed several balletBallet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
companies, including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was a ballet company created by members of the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo in 1938 after Léonide Massine and René Blum had a falling-out with the co-founder Wassily de Basil...
, during their visits to New York on world tours. Although at the time he claimed the photos were only meant to be souvenirs, they evolved into something greater. The style in which Brodovitch photographed deviated from the sharp, straight photography
Straight photography
Pure photography or straight photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, renouncing the use of manipulation....
popular at the time. According to one colleague, his images "spat in the face of technique and pointed out a new way in which photographers could work."
Brodovitch released a book of these photographs in 1945, titled simply Ballet, through a small New York publisher. The book contains 104 photographs of several ballets and is divided into eleven segments, one for each ballet performance. On the contents page, Brodovitch introduces each chapter in a typographic style that emulates the feel of the dance it is describing. He photographed with a Contax
Contax
Contax was a camera brand noted for its unique technical innovation and a wide range of Zeiss lenses, noted for their high optical quality. Its final incarnation was a line of 35 mm, medium format and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Kyocera, and featuring modern Zeiss optics...
35mm camera, no flash, and with a slow film speed. The blurred figures of the dancers allow the viewer to not only feel the music, but also to follow the line of the dancer's limbs mid-step. The images beautifully capture the atmosphere on-stage, the frenzied behind-the-scenes action backstage, and the magical moments of the ballet. By bleeding the blurred, grainy pictures off the pages and into the gutters, he communicated the emotional impact of the dance without words.
Observations
Brodovitch's work as a book designer can also be seen in Observations, a collection of photographs by Richard AvedonRichard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
and commentary by Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
, both regular contributors to Harper's Bazaar. In Observations, each spread shifts between pages of silhouetted images and pages of rectangular blocks of images and text, framed by ample stretches of white space. Although simple and elegant, the layout of the book has an enormous amount of visual variety.
Declining health
Already suffering ill health, Brodovitch was plunged into an acute state of depressionDepression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
over the death of his wife, Nina. Over the next two years, Brodovitch was sent to various hospitals on numerous occasions to cure his worsening depression and alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Throughout these hospital stays, however, Brodovitch had an incessant desire to start new projects. At one point, he began compiling an autobiography, but it was never put together. Brodovitch received a small Minox
Minox
The Minox is a subminiature camera conceived in 1922 and invented in 1936 by German-Latvian Walter Zapp, which Latvian factory VEF manufactured from 1937 to 1943. After World War II, the camera was redesigned and production resumed in Germany in 1948. Originally envisioned as a luxury item, it...
camera from an old student, Ben Rose
Ben Rose
Ben Rose was an American photographer.Ben Rose started as a photographer when he was a young man. He was graduated from the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art in 1938 and where he taught Photography and Advertising Photography from 1945–1950...
, visiting him at Manhattan State Hospital
Manhattan State Hospital
The Manhattan Psychiatric Center is a New York-state run psychiatric hospital on 125th Street on Wards Island in New York City. As of 2009 it is licensed for 509 beds, but only holds around 200 patients. The current building is 17-stories tall....
. He slipped the camera in an old box of Pall Mall cigarettes and discretely began to photograph his fellow patients. Brodovitch would often decide to discharge himself before the treatments had run course. He was so ill, however, that he would be back before the end of the day.
With no pension or regular salary from Harper's Bazaar, Brodovitch was faced with mounting hospital bills. He often lost the little freelance work he was able to scrounge up due to his unwillingness to compromise with the clients. Poor health left him unable to show up to the Design Laboratory workshops on a regular basis. When Brodovitch stopped coming all together, a few students halfheartedly tried to keep the class going in his honor. Without its creator, though, the Lab came to an end.
In 1966, Brodovitch fell and broke his hip. Physically and financially in a poor state, he moved back to France with his son Nikita to be closer to his many relatives. Two years later, he relocated to Le Thor
Le Thor
Le Thor is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It has an attractive Romanesque church, Notre-Dame-du-Lac.-External links:*...
, a small village even closer to his family in Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
. He died three years later at age 73.
After death
- 1971 Doctor of Fine Arts Degree conferred posthumously by the Philadelphia College of Art.
- 1972 "Alexey Brodovitch and His Influence" exhibition at the Philadelphia College of Art. Inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, New York.
- 1982 "Hommage à Alexey Brodovitch" exhibition at Grand-Palais, Paris.
- '2002 Publication of Alexey Brodovitch. By Kerry William Purcell. (New York: Phaidon Press, 2002)
General references
- "A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters." Publishers Weekly, 252.38 (2005).
- Appaduria, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
- Brodovitch, Alexey, and Gabriel Bauret. Alexey Brodovitch. Paris: Assouline, 1998.
- Brodovitch, Alexey. "Aphorisms." Popular Photography, 49; December, 1961, p92.
- Brodovitch, Alexey. "Brodovitch on Photography." Popular Photography, 49; December, 1961, p82-83.
- Brodovitch, Alexey, and Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, Pa.). Graphic arts section. New Poster; International Exposition of Design in Outdoor Advertising, the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Nineteen-Thirty-Seven. Philadelphia: Beck engraving company, 1937.
- Brodovitch, Alexey, and Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France). Alexey, Brodovitch : [Exposition, Grand-Palais, Paris, 27 Octobre-29 Novembre 1982]. Paris: Ministère de la culture, 1982
- Brodovitch, Alexey, and Philadelphia College of Art. Alexey Brodovitch and His Influence; [Exhibition and Catalogue. Philadelphia: Philadelphia College of Art, 1972.
- Brodovitch, Alexey. "Libres de miseria." Art and Industry, 39; September, 1945, p69.
- Brodovitch, Alexey. "What Pleases the Modern Man." Commercial Art, 9; August, 1930, p60-70.
- Brodovitch, Alexey, et al. The Enduring Legacy of Alexey Brodovitch : Two Concurrent Exhibitions on Design and Photography : "Brodovitch ... the Human Equation", the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography ; "Astonish Me: The Impact of Alexey Brodivitch", Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Gallery. New York: Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 1994.
- Coyne, Jean A. "Pioneers: Henry Wolf." Communication arts 48.8 (2007): 86.
- Coyne, Patrick. "Alexey Brodovitch." Communication Arts, 44.8 (2003): 102-105.
- Grundberg, Andy. Brodovitch. New York: Documents of American Design : H.N. Abrams, 1989.
- Morris, Holly. "Photo Finish." U.S.news world report 133.17 (2002): 52.
- Purcell, Kerry William. Alexey Brodovitch. London: Phaidon Press, 2002.
- Rogers, Michael. "Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: A Career in Photography." Library Journal, 132.4 (2007): p125.
- Sherin, Aaris. "Style Book." Print, 60.2 (2006): 48-55.
- Tomkins, Calvin. "The World of Carmel Snow." New Yorker, 70.36 (1994): 148-158.
External links
- Biography on Brodovitch at Iconofgraphics.com
- Biography on Brodovitch at AIGA website
- Alexey Brodovitch at biographer Kerry William PurcellKerry William PurcellKerry William Purcell is an English author on graphic design and visual culture. He is a frequent contributor to , and .Born in Cleethorpes, Purcell is a writer, design critic and historian. His first book on the celebrated art director and photographer was published by Phaidon Press in 2002...
's website