Alice Koeth

Calligrapher / United States /

Alice Koeth was born in Manhattan in 1927. The Koeth family lived on Staten Island, but Alice frequently traveled across the harbor to Manhattan, where she has made her home for more than half a century. She attended Washington Irving High School, at that time a vocational school for girls. A turning point in her life came in 1947: she heard of a series of lectures on “The History of the Alphabet” given by Arnold Bank at the Art Students League. She attended the talks, and as she put it, she “walked into another world.” In January 1948 she registered for Bank’s night classess at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, all the time commuting from Staten Island.

The impetus for Alice’s interest in fine writing is unexpected: in sixth grade she got a “U” (unsatisfactory) in penmanship. This did not go over well with her demanding, perfectionist father (who, by the way, had excellent handwriting). He told her, “if you can draw pictures, you can draw letters.” She put her mind to improving her handwriting, and got an “A” on the very next report card.

Before becoming a free-lance calligrapher in 1953, Alice worked in cabinetry, in layout and stone cutting with John Benson at the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island, and later in book jacket production at Pocket Books, Inc.

For over three decades, starting in 1967, Alice designed and wrote the highly praised signs for the Morgan Library & Museum. Early on she dropped her last name, going by “Alice,” and signing her work with just her first name. She did this because she became tired of people mispronouncing her last name, which, if true to its German origins, would be pronounced more like “Kert,” but her family pronouced it “Kayth.” Even Alice’s father and brother could not agree on the pronunciation! As an artist working under her first name only, she foreshadowed Twiggy, Cher, and Madonna by many years.

Alice was a founding member of the Society of Scribes (SOS), and wound up doing a great amount of work for the organization in its early years. She was co-curator, along with Jerry Kelly, of the Society’s 25th anniversary exhibition in 1999 at the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) in New York.

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.