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Stanislaw Zagórski

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Polish graphic designer (born 1933)

Stanislaw Zagórski
BornStanisław Andrzej Zagórski
(1933-01-11) 11 January 1933 (age 91)
NationalityPolish
EducationWarsaw Academy of Fine Arts
Known forGraphic design
Illustration
Type design

Stanisław Andrzej Zagórski (born 11 January 1933) is a Polish graphic designer, illustrator, type designer and educator. He is known for his work in book design, record jackets, magazine illustration, posters and advertisements. Zagórski is one of the founders of the Polish School of Posters and became one of the first Polish graphic artists to achieve success in the United States. He has received numerous creative awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club of New York, and the Society of Illustrators.

Biography

Stanisław Andrzej Zagórski was born on January 11, 1933, in Warsaw, Poland, to Karol Zagórski and Irena (née Jablkowska) Zagórski. He graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1957. While attending the academy, he met Rosław Szaybo, who went on to also become a graphic-designer. Zagórski said meeting Szaybo was one of the most important things that happened in his life. They both studied under professors Wojciech Fangor and Henryk Tomaszewski. After graduation, he worked as a free-lance graphic designer in Warsaw, from 1957 to 1963, and also worked for a short time in 1963 in Paris.

In the spring of 1963, he came to the United States to visit his sister, for what was supposed to be a two-month visit. Shortly after arriving, he was contacted by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, who offered him the chance to exhibit some of his work for a show they had planned in September. In that same month, he also exhibited his posters at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Both of these exhibits generated a great deal of interest in his work, and were highly acclaimed. His exhibit at the Institute of Arts and Sciences, consisted of twenty-two posters and several drawings and monotypes. According to Polish author Maria Brooks, his best posters at the exhibit were a poster illustrating the arrival of the Harlem Globetrotters in Poland in 1960 (which he later donated to the Museum of Modern Art); a poster called Warsaw in Art (a drawing of Warsaw's emblem, the mermaid); a UNESCO poster (a sketch of two men with an equality sign between them) for which he received the UNESCO second prize; and a poster advertising the French movie Landru.

Polish art critic, Stanislaw Ledochowski, opined that, "Zagórski's film posters are an excellent commentary on the films he illustrates ... one learns more from his posters than from most others ... since poster art admits a sensual joy of color and of unlimited form, there is the great temptation of falling into artistic hedonism ... in spite of this, Zagórski has remained an intellectual, avoiding superficial effects and mannerisms ... each of his posters is new and individual in style, and each evidences thoroughgoing thought and observation on the part of the creative artist." After the exhibitions, he made the decision to stay and try to establish himself in America.

Career

He started out his newfound career by selling a few works here and there to support himself. He shared an apartment with Tadeusz Łapiński, another Polish graphic designer, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His first professional job was for Harper & Row, designing a book cover. His second professional gig was an album cover for Atlantic Records, which helped launch a long relationship with the record company designing album covers and posters for them. In 1964, he started teaching at Temple University's Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where he remained until his retirement in 1990.

Like Zagórski said: it's all about illustrating with type.

— Paula Scher

Paula Scher, a student at Tyler at the time Zagórski was teaching, credits him as "a very important mentor". Scher said she was "afraid of typography. I didn't understand it. I wanted to be an illustrator, and I never knew how to position the typography". Scher recalls that Zagórski encouraged her to "illustrate with type" and "those three words made my entire career". She went on to say "I began drawing the type and discovering that typography could have form and then later when I began setting type at CBS Records, I found that you could be expressive simply by making choices". She also remembers traveling to New York with Zagórski in 1970, where she "made the rounds with her portfolio", visiting Push Pin Studios, where she met Seymour Chwast, who would later become her husband.

During his career, Zagórski illustrated covers for Stereo Review, Time Magazine and Opera News. He designed a poster for the 1983 television comedy-drama series The Irish R.M., created and designed an album cover for the American sitcom television series All in the Family, and designed the poster for the Rolling Stones US Tour 1978

Album cover artwork

External images
Atlanta Records Albums
via The Internet Archive
image icon The Sheriff by the Modern Jazz Quartet (1964)
image icon Loaded by the Velvet Underground (1970)
image icon Zagórskis album covers at a 1981 exhibition, (Portraits: Americans of Polish Origin), by photographer Czesław Czapliński in New York

In 1964, he started working with Atlantic Records and Columbia Records in New York. His first album cover for Atlantic was The Sheriff by the Modern Jazz Quartet. He went on to design covers for Ray Charles, Cream, Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, Eddie Harris, Barney Kessel, Roland Kirk, Professor Longhair, Blind Willie McTell, The Rascals, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Shirley Scott, The Spinners, The Velvet Underground and Jimmy Yancey

In 1970, he designed the album cover for Loaded by the Velvet Underground. Speaking to music journalist David Fricke, Zagórski said Atlantic Records would call; "tell me the album title, give a short description of the music, and since I was still very foreign in terms of experience in New York, I thought of 'Underground' in terms of the subway". He also admitted that when he designed the cover, he wasn't really familiar with the band. Fricke opined, "the cover has its own charm; it certainly suits the record's playful spirit of commercial subversion and is a neat twist on the Velvets' then-standing reputation as drugged-up terrors".

Atlantic also commissioned Zagórski to create posters for some of the companies roster of artists to display in record stores. Some of his notable posters included: Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Wilson Pickett, Les McCann, Eddie Harris, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, The Bee Gees, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Carl Palmer and Herbie Mann. Atlantic Records vice-president of publicity and advertising Bob Rolontz said "this is the first time a recording company has commissioned an artist of Mr. Zagórski's stature to create portraits of recording artists on such an extensive scale ... exhibited together, they make an eye-stopping display for record retailers and outlets". Two of the posters, Greg Lake and David Crosby, were selected as among the "best designed posters for the 1971–1972 period", and were featured in the December issue of Print Magazine, and also exhibited at the Mead Library of Ideas in the Pan Am Building in New York.

Selected album covers by Zagórski
Year Album Artist Ref
1968 Double Cross Hank Crawford
Hair London Cast Recording
In Person at the Whisky a Go Go Otis Redding
Time Peace: The Rascals' Greatest Hits The Rascals
Wheels of Fire Cream
1969 First Take Roberta Flack
1972 Live Cream Volume II Cream
New Orleans Piano Professor Longhair
Young, Gifted and Black Roberta Flack
In the Beginning (reissue cover) Isaac Hayes
1973 Jazz at the Plaza Vol. I Miles Davis
1974 Mighty Love The Spinners
1975 The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color Rahsaan Roland Kirk
1977 Ram Jam Ram Jam

Time magazine covers

External images
Time Magazine Cover Art
via the National Portrait Gallery
image icon The Jesus Revolution
image icon Carlos Castaneda
image icon Is Capitalism Working?

In 1978, Time Magazine donated approximately eight hundred works of original cover art to the National Portrait Gallery, which included eleven of Zagórski's works for the magazine. Notable magazine covers he illustrated include prominent figures: Carlos Castaneda, Henry Kissinger, John Sirica, John Dean, Richard Bach and António de Spínola.

In June 1971, Zagórski did an illustration for the cover of Time titled, "The Jesus Revolution", which featured Jesus "looking like the lead guitarist in a folk-funk band". American scholar of religion Stephen Prothero described Zagórski's illustration of Jesus as a "freak to end all freaks ... bedazzled with pink skin and purple hair and framed by a psychedelic rainbow ... whether this Jesus was communing with his people or tripping on LSD is open to interpretation, but he was clearly experiencing an altered state of consciousness".

In 2016, American Christian film director Jon Erwin met with Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, and brought a copy of the 1971 magazine with him. Erwin told Laurie, "you know, I want this to happen for my generation, and I want to make a movie about this". In 2023, the movie Jesus Revolution was released, which told Laurie's story and the role of two Time covers in the Jesus movement, one being Zagórskis, and the other one, the controversial cover published in 1966, titled "Is God Dead?" In 2022, his 1973 portrait of John Dean, was featured with several other artist's drawings of people involved in the Watergate scandal, for an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, called "Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue".

See also

References

  1. ^ Brzozowicz, Grzegorz (April 9, 2013). Nikodem, Jakub; Lech, Filip (eds.). "LP's Designed in PL". Culture.pl. (article includes 30 images of his album covers)
  2. ^ Croft, Virginia, ed. (1988). Posters Made Possible By A Grant From Mobil: A Collection of 250 International Posters. foreword by Brendan Gill. Zurich: Graphis Press. p. 169. OCLC 1412759167.
  3. ^ Wierzbiański, Bolesław, ed. (1996). Who's Who In Polish America: 1996–1997 (1st ed.). New York: Bicentennial Publishing Corporation. p. 521. ISBN 978-0-7818-0520-9.
  4. ^ Brzozowicz, Grzegorz (September 6, 2013). Kostyrko, Weronika (ed.). "Wciąż lubię szybką jazdę – wywiad ze Stanisławem Zagórskim". Culture.pl (in Polish).
  5. ^ Brooks, Maria Z. (1963). "Polish Poster Exhibits in America". The Polish Review. 8 (4): 110–111. ISSN 0032-2970.
  6. "Stanislaw Zagórski Harlem Globetrotters". Museum of Modern Art.
  7. Sell, Jadwiga Zwolska (1965). "Review of Postwar Polish Poetry, Czesław Miłosz". The Polish Review. 10 (3): 82–84. ISSN 0032-2970.
  8. Donson, Jerome A. (1964). "College Art News". Art Journal. 24 (2): 190–203. ISSN 0004-3249.
  9. ^ Walters, John L. (Autumn 2010). "Reputations: Paula Scher". Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design. No. 77. pp. 46–56.
  10. Essmaker, Ryan (November 19, 2013). "Paula Scher on The Great Discontent (TGD)". The Great Discontent.
  11. Morris, Steven (2002). "Q & A". Step Inside Design. Vol. 18, no. 4. pp. 54–59.
  12. ^ "The Rebel Designer". Hospitality Design. Vol. 43, no. 5. June–July 2021. pp. 122–123.
  13. Czapliński, Czesław (January 8, 2022). "Portret z Historią Stanisław Zagórski". Czczaplinski.com (in Polish).
  14. Driscoll, F. Paul (May 2006). "Frank Merkling". Opera News. Vol. 70, no. 11. p. 93.
  15. All in the Family cast (1972). "All In The Family 2nd Album". Atlantic Records.
  16. Herraiz, Federico García (2000). "Una Cierta Iconografía Del Jazz: Las portadas de los discos" [A Certain Jazz Iconography: The album covers]. Litoral (in Spanish) (227–228): 273–291. ISSN 0212-4378.
  17. Harris, Eddie (1998). "Greater Than The Sum Of His Parts:The Tender Storm". Atlantic Records.
  18. Kessel, Barney (1969). "Hair Is Beautiful". Atlantic Records.
  19. Kirk, Roland (1998). "The Inflated Tear". Rhino Records.
  20. ^ Dean, Roger; Howells, David (1987). The Ultimate Album Cover Album. New York: Prentice Hall Press. pp. 26–27. ISBN 0-13-935750-5.
  21. ^ Redding, Otis (1968). "In Person At The Whisky A Go Go". Atlantic Records.
  22. Scott, Shirley (1969). "Soul Song". Atlantic Records.
  23. ^ The Spinners (1974). "Mighty Love". Rhino Records.
  24. Yancey, Jimmy (1991). "Chicago Piano Volume 1". Atlantic Records.
  25. ^ The Velvet Underground; David Fricke (1997). Loaded (Fully Loaded Edition). Geoffrey Haslam, Danny Fields, Stanislaw Zagórski, Bill Inglot and Geoff Gans. Rhino.
  26. Martucci, Mike, ed. (April 29, 1972). "More Atl. Portraits By Zagórski" (PDF). Cashbox Magazine. Vol. 33, no. 45. p. 10.
  27. "2 Atl. Posters Best Designed" (PDF). Billboard Magazine. Vol. 84, no. 51. December 16, 1972. p. 4.
  28. The Rascals (1968). "Time Peace: The Rascals' Greatest Hits". Atlantic Records.
  29. Cream (1968). "Wheels Of Fire". Polydor.
  30. Flack, Roberta (1969). "First Take". Atlantic Records.
  31. "The Time Collection | National Portrait Gallery". Smithsonian.
  32. Institution, Smithsonian (1978). "Stanislaw Zagórski". Smithsonian Institution.
  33. ^ Luscombe, Belinda (July 6, 2023). "The Story Behind Time's 1971 'Jesus Revolution' Cover". Time.
  34. Prothero, Stephen (2004). American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-4668-0605-4.
  35. Rothman, Lily (2016). "'Is God Dead?' Cover Turns 50". Time.
  36. Jenkins, Mark (April 8, 2022). "National Portrait Gallery exhibition looks at Watergate 50 years later".

Further reading

External links

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