The Paris Review: 60 Years of Substance and Style
Since its founding in 1953, cover design has helped define the cultural significance of The Paris Review
By Anne Quito, Superscript January 30, 2014
It’s a rare sighting these days. In its early years, a rather affable-looking eagle donning a bonnet rouge had a permanent perch on the upper left hand corner of the Paris Review cover. Designed by its first art editor, William Pène du Bois, the emblem heralds the quarterly’s French-American roots. The Review was founded in 1953 by a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris and has since established itself as a premier venue for a stellar succession of literary voices including Jack Kerouac, V.S. Naipaul, and Samuel Beckett, just to name a few.
Over the last six decades, the journal’s format has gone through significant style revolutions and revivals. Like a spy in multiple guises from its alleged cloak-and-dagger past, its masthead shape-shifts from serif to sans serif and back again and the number of pages shrinks and expands. For the cover of issue 204—the publication’s 60th anniversary issue—the editors commissioned the mysterious French photographer/street artist JR to flypost a wall in Paris’s 11th arrondissement with a giant portrait of George Plimpton, a symbolic homecoming for the magazine’s legendary founding editor. Like the diversity of stories in each issue, the Review has featured a wide range of visual modes by established and emerging artists on its covers—illustration, conceptual art, painting and photography—“blithely serious and seriously blithe,” to borrow from the words of current editor, Lorin Stein.
Showcasing this eclectic array of art prominently on its covers is a point of pride for the Review, which, as with its literary aspirations, sought to expose new artists to broader audiences. Among the artists to design covers are Keith Haring, David Hockney, printmaker Mario Avati, Alain Jacquet, Larry Rivers, illustrator Tom Keogh, and Lucio Fontana. Beyond commissioning cover art, The Paris Review established a Print Series in 1964 that allowed the publication to produce artwork by artists including Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, and many others. This tradition continues today following a hiatus after Plimpton’s death in 2003.
The Review’s cover has inspired several design tributes—including the interior of the Australian beauty brand Aesop’s shop in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, which features a lively ceiling canopy assembled from back issues of the Review, and a limited-edition line of swim trunks sold at Barney’s New York—asserting the broad reach of the magazine’s cultural significance.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast Design Matters—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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