- The incredible work of Cipe Pineles, Joseph Binder,
and Alexey Brodovitch, and Vogue, Harper's Bizarre,
and Seventeen introduced modernist ideas,
and the European avant garde to the United States.
These magazines however,
reached only a small, elite audience.
The average American in the midst of the Great Depression,
did not need luxury items,
expensive cruises, or couture fashion.
Unemployment during the Depression
was as high as 25 percent.
Franklin Roosevelt initiated a new federal program,
the Works Progress Administration, or W.P.A.
The W.P.A. employed millions of Americans.
They built dams, bridges, roads, and federal buildings.
One division, the Federal Art Project, employed designers,
illustrators, photographers, sculptors, and painters.
The Federal Art Project introduced modernism
to a wider audience in America through posters.
Designers were urged to speak to the masses
in the least elitist way possible.
Imagery was representational, but not overly realistic.
The subject matter ranged from
travel posters to local art exhibitions.
The program maintained the arts in the United States
and began a tradition of public arts projects.
Many of the W.P.A. designers
had been exposed to European modernism.
The Bauhaus approach was geared to speak
to a small group of European designers,
and was not effective in reaching millions of Americans.
W.P.A. designers integrated the simple forms
and geometric shapes, with clear iconography and symbols.
Pure colors were easier to reproduce
with offset and silk-screen printing,
and communicated hope and progress.
Lester Beall's poster for the
Rural Electrification Administration
are a great example of complex messages
reduced to geometry and symbols.
In 1935, 90 percent of America's
rural areas had no electricity.
Beall was tasked through the W.P.A.
to convince people in these areas to adopt electricity.
He used silhouetted photography, icons such as arrows,
and radically simplified shapes,
such as the water faucet on this poster.
Beall designed posters that left no doubt to the message.
His poster with arrows and the word "Radio",
make it clear immediately that electricity
will bring radio to your home, in red, white, and blue.
In addition to the W.P.A.'s influence,
most of the designers associated with the Bauhaus,
or modern ideas, fled Germany to the United States.
American designers began to seek firsthand,
these ideas and action, and adopted many of the forms.
Joseph Binder's poster for the 1939 World's Fair,
exaggerates the scale of the monuments.
The asymmetrical layout expresses energy,
by rotating the subject at an angle,
and using dramatic lighting.
The poster is a series of repeating forms.
The triangle of the Trylon is echoed with the spotlights.
The Perisphere's circle is used for the walkway.
And the typography serves as a grounding element.
Paul Rand took the modernist concepts,
and applied them with a lighter touch.
This catalog for design students at the 1939 World's Fair,
uses the simple geometry of the Constructivists,
but adds a layer of humor,
by referring to the Fair's famous landmarks,
the Trylon and Perisphere, with basic design elements.
Paul Rand's cover for Apparel Arts magazine,
is influenced by Moholy Nagy's
experimental photography at the Bauhaus.
Rand however, lightens the tone with a loose
engraving of a palm tree, echoing the boat propeller.
European modernism began in Germany
and evolved in the United States.
The ideas and values remain the same.
But the purpose was now to communicate complex ideas,
or to promote products to a
wider audience than ever before.
The result was a kinder, gentler modernism
for the American way of life.