Artist of the day: Artist of the day, July 30: Lester Beall, an American graphic designer (#758)

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Artist of the day, July 30: Lester Beall, an American graphic designer (#758)

Lester Thomas Beall (1903 – 1969) was an American graphic designer notable as a leading proponent of modernist graphic design in the United States. He was a man with a very technology-oriented background

Lester Beall graduated with a Ph.D. in the History of Fine Art and the years following his graduation found him expressing an interest in modern art movements such as Surrealism, Constructivism, and Dadaism. His work as an advertiser and graphic designer quickly gained international recognition and the most productive years of his career, during the 1930s and 40s, saw many successes in both fields.

According to his online AIGA biography: "Through the 1930s and 1940s, Beall produced innovative and highly regarded work for clients including the Chicago Tribune, Sterling Engraving, The Art Directors Club of New York, Hiram Walker, Abbott Laboratories and Time magazine. Of particular interest was his work for the Crowell Publishing Company which produced Colliers magazine. The promotional covers "Will There Be War?" and "Hitler's Nightmare" are powerful designs which distill messages of the time. In these works, he utilizes angled elements, iconic arrows, silhouetted photographs, and dynamic shapes, all of which captures the essence of his personal style of the late 1930s. Also of interest in this period are the remarkable poster series for the United States government's Rural Electrification Administration."

His clear and concise use of typography was highly praised both in the United States and abroad. Throughout his career, he used bold primary colors and illustrative arrows and lines in a graphic style that became easily recognizable as his own. He eventually moved to rural New York and set up an office, and home, at a premise that he and his family called "Dumbarton Farm". He remained at the farm until his death in 1969.

Apparent from his drawings Beall's personal style was amongst the first in his time period to use a unique technique of using each stroke to outline his subject matter giving it dept and shape with each sweep of his hand. These are the very original magnificent examples of early abstract expressionism that later became staples of the famous De Kooning and other styles.

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