Milton Glaser, the graphic designer whose body of artwork spanned such iconic images as the I ❤️ NY logo and a 1967 psychedelic Bob Dylan poster, died June 26, 2020, on his 91st birthday. The cause of death was a stroke and renal failure; Glaser had been in hospice for some time.
Glaser was among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. His famous I ❤️ NY logo, which has been described as “the most frequently imitated logo design in human history,” was commissioned by the state of New York in 1976, to promote tourism.
In 1966, with Bob Dylan bedridden following a motorcycle accident, Glaser was hired by Columbia Records to design a poster for the 1967 album Bob Dylan Greatest Hits. The resulting 22″ x 33″ work, folded and included in the LP, was a study of Dylan in profile, his hair an imaginative swirl of vibrant colors. The only type in the poster was the name DYLAN in capital letters at the bottom. Its inspiration was Marcel Duchamp’s 1957 self-portrait. “That was an influence for the colors and shapes in the picture,” said Glaser.
In 1968, Glaser and Clay Felker founded New York magazine, where Glaser was president and design director until 1977. For several years, he co-authored the magazine’s “The Underground Gourmet” feature, a guide to cheap restaurants in the city and a precursor to countless crowdsourced sites. The publication became the model for city magazines, and stimulated a host of imitations.
Glaser famously sketched the I ❤️ NY logo in a taxi. Expecting the state’s tourism campaign to only last several months, he agreed to work pro bono. The New York State Dept. of Economic Development owns the trademarked logo.
Glaser had the distinction of staging one-man-shows at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Paris’ Georges Pompidou Center. He was selected for the lifetime achievement award of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (2004) and the Fulbright Association (2011), and in 2009 he was the first graphic designer to receive the National Medal of the Arts award. As a Fulbright scholar, Glaser studied with the painter Giorgio Morandi in Bologna. He opened Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and continued to produce a prolific amount of work in many fields of design.
Glaser was born June 26, 1929, in the Bronx, New York. Upon graduating from Cooper Union in New York, he and several other designers and illustrators started Push Pin Studios in 1954.
Glaser’s graphic and architectural commissions also include the design of a 600-foot mural for the New Federal Office Building in Indianapolis in 1974; the complete graphic and decorative programs for the restaurants in the World Trade Center, New York, as well as the design of the Observation Deck and Permanent Exhibition for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1975.
In 1968, Glaser also designed a poster for Aretha Franklin, much in the style of the earlier one he did for Dylan. This one was included in an issue of Eye magazine. The original work, one of some 450 posters he created, was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 2011.
Glaser was a member of the faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts for over half a century.
In the fifties Glaser and his wife Shirley were among the first to reinvest in the arts colony of Woodstock, NY, which had fallen on hard times. Land was cheap and rustic farmhouses made ideal weekend getaways for New York City residents. The Glasers sold the home in 2017.
Glaser also designed a number of architectural projects including Sesame Place, a children’s educational play park in Pennsylvania, 1981-83. He was responsible for the interior design and concept for the 1987-88 Triennale di Milano International Exhibition in Milan, Italy, on the theme of “World Cities and the Future of the Metropolis.” In 1987, Glaser was responsible for the graphic program of the Rainbow Room complexes in New York’s Rockefeller Center. That same year, he designed the World Health Organization’s International AIDS Symbol and poster.
Watch the intro of a documentary on Glaser, To Inform and Delight
In 1990, Milton Glaser, Inc. was responsible for the overall conceptualization and interior design of New York Unearthed, a museum located in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. In 1993, he designed the logo for Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Angels in America. In recent years, Glaser served as a design consultant for such companies as Brooklyn Brewery, JetBlue and Target Corp. He was known to still be working in his 90th year.
Glaser is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Chase Manhattan Bank, New York; the National Archive, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York.
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