Inner pages Exhibition Catalog

Print Culture:

Midcentury Modern Graphic Design in San Diego

Print Culture presents a rich variety of fine graphic design created in the mid-twentieth century by San Diego designers, illustrators, photographers, artists and art directors – described as San Diego’s own “mad men”. A variety of techniques and creative processes are represented with some intimately handmade items and others more commercial.

Graphics for the defense industry represent one end of a spectrum presented in Print Culture.

At the other end is work that artists did for themselves: exhibition announcements, mailers, posters, invitations, greeting cards, and all kinds of printed objects – some offhand, some precise – that are, at once, independent works of art and evidence of historic creative activity.

Featured artists include John Baldessari, Tom Gould, Bill Noonan, James Boynton, Bob Matheny, Barney Reid and Jim Sundell. Print Culture is organized by guest curator Dave Hampton and made possible by a collaboration between the San Diego Public Library and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.

For some artists, working with a printing press transcended the boundaries of studio practice, commercial work for hire, and a hobby. Usually called letterpress, the activity was fundamentally communication and interaction, including greetings and announcements of all kinds. Artist Bob Matheny considered it a “creative pastime.” Professional and non-professional groups were formed in San Diego— from the Art Directors” Club representing the former category, to a group called the Patrons of the Private Press that was organized by Matheny.

2 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

a “creative pastime.”

As soon as he moved to San Diego, Bob Matheny became active in the graphic design and art communities. He preferred to exchange ideas and share company with other designers who worked on presses at home, and formed a group with other design professionals: Bill Noonan, Rene Sheret and Burt Brockett.

Calling themselves the Patrons of the Private Press, they shared work, collaborated on a calendar, and held lunch and dinner meetings. These events generated elaborately crafted announcements and invitations; the group’s most significant accomplishment was an exhibition of international private press printing at the Fine Arts Gallery (now the San Diego Museum of Art.)

M atheny received examples of work from a network of smallscale press operations

In 1959 Matheny received examples of work from a network of small-scale press operations all of the U.S., England, and Australia. These were displayed at the Fine Arts Gallery in Balboa Park from January through February 1960, along with work by the four Patrons. The Patrons of the Private Press became less active after a couple of years.

In the early 1960s the group held a “reunion� exhibit, which included works by Tom Suzuki and Phil Kirkland in addition to the regular members.

they made technical information easy to understand through words and pictures.

During World War II, the Navy’s small Radio and Sound Laboratory began to work with scientists from the University of California at Scripps Institution of Oceanography to research and develop electronic equipment and systems. They briefly occupied a civilian mansion of Point Loma, known as Building X, but after the war became formally known as the Navy Electonics Laboratory, NEL for short, and moved to a new building off Catalina Boulevard.

6 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

The Navy Electonics Laboratory was home to a team of scientists, writers, teachers, and artists responsible for illustrating and documenting the lab’s projects. Led by versatile artists responsible for illustrating and documenting the lab’s projects. Let by versatile artists who emphasized modernist design, such as John Olsen and later Barney Reid, they made technical information easy to understand through words and pictures. The artists worked in a separate, two-story form barracks building, where some of them had a standing bridge game that ran like clockwork at lunchtime.

the graphic design team created sophisticated design when given the chance.

After John Baldessari, who worked there for a summer, the most well-known artist to work at NEL was Harry Bertoia (1915—1978).

Between working on the famous wire chairs for Charles Eames, and his own line of wire “Diamond” chairs for Knoll furniture, the renowned designer and sculptor worked as an illustrator at NEL from about 1947 through 1950.

Other notable artists at NEL include Ethel Greene, Jim Clark, Russell Baldwin, and Jim Boynton—one of the few graphic designers to e given a solo show at the Art Center in La Jolla (now Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, MCASD.

8 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

Most of the work at NEL was not artistically stimulating, but with knowledgeable artists in charge, the graphic design team created sophisticated design when given the chance. Jim Sundell created a humorous character to animate employee handbooks and various safety guides, and Bob Matheny’s financial report uses coins in an inventive way. Tom Gould was asked to draw a cross-section of an underground laboratory in a former gun battery on Point Loma (which was never build).

The NEL artists provided clever modernist designs to go with surprising subject matter, such as undersea warfare of instruction for strike force commanders.

10 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

“all i ask is... do good work.”

The Atlas booster rocket, followed by the Centaur upper-stage section was used extensively in the famed Mercury space program and astronauts Wally Schirra, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, and Gordon Cooper visited “Astro,” as the employees called it, in 1959. Faced with the assembled crowd of engineers and other Astro workers, Grissom, whose life was literally in their hands, famously said “All I ask is… do good work,” which soon became a company mantra.

In one-story letters, “Do Good Work” was painted on the side of the remaining ConvairAstronautics building at Lindberg Field.

11 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

12 Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design

conveying complex meaning with an engaging image.

In the late 1950s and early 60s,

Stan Hodge was the Manager of Art Direction at Astro under Charles

Newton, Director of Communications.

Hodge previously taught at UCLA and at CSU Long Beach. Bob Matheny is one of the many artists who worked for Hodge. In fact, Matheny came from Long Beach to San Diego specifically at Hodge’s invitation, and worked at Asto from 1958 to 1960. Several cover pages for reports that Matheny worked on are included in this exhibition.

Hodge favored cleverly designed posters, and the reductive challenge of conveying complex meaning with an engaging image and the most simple words available

Print Culture: Midcentury Modern Graphic Design San Diego Central Library Art Gallery, Floor 9 December 10, 2016 – May 7, 2017 Sponsored by the Friends of the Central Library Gallery Hours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, noon–5 p.m.

Thursday, 2–7 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, noon–4 pm Closed on Monday