New Canaan Library and The Glass House are pleased to welcome Steven Heller and Greg D'Onofrio, speaking on the advent of Midcentury graphic design and introducing their book, The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design. Heller and D'Onofrio appear as part of Glass House Presents at New Canaan Library, an occasional series of talks and events about architecture, design, and Modernism in New Canaan and beyond, organized by The Glass House and New Canaan Library. The event will be held in the Library's Adrian Lamb Room on Tuesday, October 9 at 6:30 p.m., preceded by a light reception at 6 p.m. Please register online at newcanaanlibrary.org.
Modernism in the design world transformed American graphic design in the mid-twentieth century, and established a visual language that still carries tremendous authority. The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio (Abrams Books, 2017) is the first comprehensive survey of this phenomenon that shaped our visual environment, and presents the work and lives of sixty-three graphic designers. Some were émigrés (including five Bauhaus students and faculty) who brought the gospel of Modernism to America from its sources in Europe. Others were homegrown talents who encountered Modernism in schools and offices at home and abroad. Together, they formed a multigenerational community, learning from one another and forging their individual practices through rigorous engagement with the aesthetics of the movement.
Greg D’Onofrio is a designer, educator, and co-founder of Kind Company and Display, Graphic Design Collection. Greg has curated, lectured, and authored essays on twentieth-century American, Italian and Swiss modern graphic design history. He teaches the History of Graphic Design at the School of Visual Arts and Cooper Union in New York City.