Alvin Lustig and Mid-Century Modernism

Incantation. Designed by Alvin Lustig, 1947. Printed cotton

Alvin Lustig was a mid-century designer who worked in so many disciplines he is hard to pigeonhole. I opened up the post with a piece of fabric but am going to include a variety of designs showing mastery in different disciplines. 

Lustig was born in 1915 and died in 1955. He attended the Los Angeles School of Art and did a brief stint with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin East. Richard Neutra and Phillip Johnson could be counted among his friends. He and his wife had studios in California and New York. In the 50's he moved to Israel in an effort to establish strong modern design in the infant country. Unfortunately, he passed away before this plan could really be carried out. 

Lustig's strongest contribution was in book cover illustration and was highly sought after for illustrating novels. Along with this he designed fabric, furniture, and interiors. An in-depth study of Lustig can be found here if further investigated is wanted. 

Gallery

A Selection of Book Covers designed by Alvin Lustig

Segmented lounge chair by Alvin Lustig for Paramount Furniture-1951

Custom Standing Light for Edgardo Contini 1949

Black and white study for a fabric design, 1940's 

Alvin Lustig in his California studio

Lucienne Day and Nature

"Plants and the sense of growth was a very strong inspiration for me"-Lucienne Day

Today's post starts out with a quote from one of my favorite designers, Lucienne Day.  With this quote in mind, I have put together a Look Book of  some of her designs that definitely have a nature and growth influence.

I have to revisit Calyx, her breakout design first published in 1951

Tarn

Fall

Flowers

Climbing Trees

Perpetua

Larch

I have four posts about Lucienne Day.  My first post, which is a good introduction to her can be found here. The second post covers work that she created in orange. The last post talks about her pure non-objective works.

Joan Miró Inspired Fabric

Women and Birds printed cotton dress fabric, after Joan Miró , produced by Fuller fabric-c. 1955-56

I have been researching fabric lately. Having decided to create my own drapes or Roman Shades for my living room, I’ve been looking for inspirations.  I love Mid-Cen stuff so that is what I have zeroed in on. In the process I have found so many beautiful and creative cloths that has been produced during the last 60 years. From time to time I am going to share my findings.

The Spanish Surrealist artist Joan Miró (April 20,1893 – December 25,1983) inspired the  fabric for this blog edition. Below is an example of Miró's work for those not familiar with it . He has always been one of my favorites.  I have used his work to illustrate the use of color and line with some of my younger students. Plus, having six cats I am just a tad drawn to this one below!

A second article that I have put together with another great fabric design based on  Joan Miró can  be found here. 

For a third article concentrating on  Joan Miró's bird paintings can be found here. 

  

Cat Encircled by the Flight of  a Bird