Some ephemeral points of comparison between the work of Seymour Chwast and Andy Warhol.

→ More

Seymour Chwast Collection: Series 5, Item E33. Photograph by Carl Fischer.

In 1995, the Cooper Union celebrated the 40th anniversary of Pushpin Studios with an exhibition and special sale of drawings and paintings by the three founders, pictured above: Seymour Chwast, Edward Sorel, and Milton Glaser; along with works by John Alcorn, Sam Antupit, Michael Aron, Vincent Ceci, Paul Davis, George Leavitt, Tim Lewis, Jim McMullan, Reynold Ruffins, Jerold Smokler, Richard Mantel, “and others.” This reminded me of another similar device that captured a group that is also heavily represented by the Archive.

→ More (1)

From the Push Pin Slide Collection: what appears to be a study for an alphabet based on the 1971 PBS identity designed by Lubalin Studio.

→ More (1)

One regular advertiser in the Push Pin Graphic was Metropolitan Printing.

→ More

Seymour Chwast’s designs for Bic Parfum.

→ More

Seymour Chwast’s intricate composition of his illustrations.

→ More

Seymour Chwast takes on Bazooka Joe.

→ More (2)

Seymour Chwast Collection, from the Pushpin Slide Directory. n.d.

Another obscure, undated bit of imagery from the Pushpin slide library. Seymour Chwast’s contribution to the legacy of Roth-Händle cigarettes, probably for Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung. He’s in good company: Robert Motherwell did a collage of the same, and, more pertinent certainly, many famous posters for the brand were designed by the great early twentieth-century designer Herbert Leupin. Note: despite the preponderance of smoking-related imagery we’ve been posting lately, Container List does not condone the practice, which doesn’t make you look cool unless you’re already Humphrey Bogart. Kids, it’s just NOT archival.

→ Comment (1)

And now, the companion piece to the Pushpin beers post. “Any port in a storm.”

→ More

A short tour of Seymour Chwast’s designs for beer and soda packaging.

→ More (3)

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, 1964. Image courtesy of the SVA Picture Collection

Bob Dylan’s brief relationship with Joan Baez was exhaustively documented, but we get interested when that affair highlighted the work of Push Pin Studios. In 1964, Dylan and Baez were photographed at Newark Airport in front of Seymour Chwast’s poster for Booth’s Gin: an incongruous, but not surprising, image of two icons flanking a countercultural message from a corporate advertiser.

→ Comment (2)

Seymour Chwast Collection. Series 1: Original Art. Box 1, Item O4. (Marked “Neisser rand darf beschnitfen werdfin.”) Marker on paper (mounted), 20 × 24 in.

Here in New York we’re struggling through a heatwave. Perhaps a good course of action for those lucky enough to reside in air-conditioned high-rise Soho lofts is to keep it cool by lounging about with bright furniture, like the sporty cat in this illustration by Seymour Chwast (undated, but probably for the Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung).

→ Comment

The transfigured shoes of Push Pin Studios.

→ More

In the mid-80s Seymour Chwast was approached by Georg Kovacs, Inc. to experiment with furniture in the Pushpin style.

→ More

Detail from an advertisement in Print, May/June 1979.

The thing that fascinates me most about Push Pin Graphic is how unpredictable they manage to be all the time. Even apart from the contents of each issue, every promotion contains — no matter how generic the thing as a whole may be — some off-kilter element that has a defamiliarizing effect on the whole endeavor. The Cherie Currie-esque figure here has no other reference anywhere on the page, she’s just hanging out in the margin of the tearaway.

→ Comment (2)