Graphic Arts: USA was an exhibition intended to display the finest examples of modern advertising graphics, book cover design and poster art that was created throughout the West during the late Fifties - early Sixties. The show was organized by the Exhibition Division of the United States Information Agency under the watchful eye of Jack Masey (1924 - 2016) and toured four Soviet cities beginning in the Fall of 1963 and closing one year later.
"The exhibition is a study of in calculated disorder, diversity, and uninhibited gaiety. It has been designed to show what happens in a society where an artist, whatever his talents happen to be, is free to let his imagination run in any direction he wants and the message is getting across."
The exhibit's popularity was a surprise to all concerned; Jack Masey "expected a sizable turnout but not the more than one thousand every hour who have been pouring in since the show opened."
"'You mean you're really allowed to paint like this, and nobody says anything?' one of the visitors asked."
In the five decades that have passed since the exposition was launched it has become legend. The artists whose work was displayed are still remembered as the finset in their respective fields. The graphic artists were Ivan Chermayeff, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Herb Lubalin, Rudolph de Harak, Tony Palladino, Bob Gill, Leo Lionni, Gene Federico, Jack Wolfgang Beck, Goerge Tscherny, Ben Shahn, Walter Allner, John Alcorn, Tom Geismar Ray Komai, Seymour Chwast & Milton Glaser.
The illustrators who participated were Jim McMullan, Gerry Gersten, Austin Briggs, John Groth, René Bouché, Eugene Karlin, Harvey Schmidt, Maurice Sendak, Ellen Raskin, Bob Peak, Phil Hays, Thomas B. Allen and Bernard Fuchs. Cartoons and other assorted humorous illustrations were provided by Saul Steinberg, Lionel Kalish, Louis Silverstein, Roy Doty, Saul Mandel, Abner Dean, R. O. Blechman, Jerome Kuhl, Walter Einsel, Edward Sorel, Roger Duvoisin, Roy McKie, Ernie Pintoff, Lou Meyers, Jules Feiffer and Robert Osborn.
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