Cover Story: The Art of American Magazine Covers 1900-1950

by Steven Heller, Louise Fili

Uncle Sam. The Gibson Girl. Some of America's most memorable images made their debuts on the covers of magazines. During the Golden Age of the American magazine cover, the corner newsstand was a veritable gallery for some of the country's leading illustrators, artists, and cartoonists. This volume showcases over 200 remarkable covers from publications as diverse as Saturday Evening Post, Harper's Bazaar, Fortune, Good Housekeeping, and Vanity Fair. 280 color illustrations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, History

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

Steven Heller writes a monthly column on graphic design books for The New York Times Book Review and is co-chair of MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts. He has written more than 100 books on graphic design, illustration and political art, including Paul Rand, Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century, Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design Second Edition, Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age, Graphic Design History, Citizen Designer, Seymour Chwast: The Left Handed Designer, The Push Pin Graphic: Twenty Five Years of Design and Illustration, Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits, The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design. He edits VOICE: The AIGA Online Journal of Graphic Design, and writes for Baseline, Design Observer, Eye, Grafik, I.D., Metropolis, Print, and Step. Steven is the recipient of the Art Directors Club Special Educators Award, the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and the School of Visual Arts' Masters Series Award.

Reviews

[Lena Tumasyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book from the library on a whim. I saw the cover and was curious. I've seen many images with drawings similar to the cover, but I never really knew where they were from. It turns out that quite a few of the old fashioned drawings I saw are actually magazine covers way back in the day. Pretty neat!

I liked this book. It gives a good overview of magazines and the cover art used. It shows how much of a necessity artist rendering was to the cover. Granted, photography existed back then (in the 1920s - 50s), but the illustrations are just so much more glamorous and so much more reflective of the culture at the time. I agree with that they said "the artist was his own editor back then," which is very much unlike covers now. Compared to today's magazine covers, those older covers were breaking many of today's rules (such as constantly changing the logo and location of elements, etc). But it looked like the artists really had FUN with it. It really was their canvas, their gallery, and their outlet for expressing their art.

Of course, I also liked the cultural exploration of the covers. That you could tell what ideals of the time were in the 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. You could see by the art what was considered "beautiful" or "life of leisure," what political turmoil was happening at the time, and how oil companies "put on a good face," pun intended.

Very interesting! I recommend this book to art fans, advertising and media folks, and culture explorers.