Late designer Ivan Chermayeff (1932-2017) made a name for himself by revolutionizing the field of visual communication, designing hundreds of some of the most recognizable corporate and institutional logos that proliferate our collective cultural consciousness to this day. Such logos include those for The Smithsonian, NBC, Mobil, Chase Bank, Showtime, Pepsi, MoCA, and many others. Chermayeff did so as one-half of the branding and graphic design firm Chermayeff & Geismar, which he founded with Tom Geismer in 1957.
While this client work comprises the crux of Chermayeff’s legacy, he maintained a lively personal art practice on the side, primarily using mixed media collage and printmaking techniques. Following Chermayeff’s passing in 2017, his family generously donated more than 700 pieces of his original art to SVA’s Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives.
To showcase these unique pieces and honor Chermayeff’s lesser-known artistic prowess, SVA Galleries and the SVA Archives have curated an exhibition of these works entitled “Copy, Cut + Paste: The Visual Language of Ivan Chermayeff.” On view through October 1 at the SVA Gramercy Gallery in New York, the exhibition presents nearly 50 of Chermayeff’s collages, a number of early works, works in progress, and professional works— plus some finger paintings! The show was curated by SVA Archives’ Head of Archives Beth Kleber and Assistant Archivist Lawrence Giffin.
“Collage makes it possible for everything to be something else.”
Ivan Chermayeff
As a lifelong mixed-media collagist and collector, Chermayeff incorporated many of the objects he found into both his personal and professional work. The pieces shown within “Copy, Cut + Paste: The Visual Language of Ivan Chermayeff” exemplify his playful and experimental point of view and the way in which he used collage and mixed media to unlock new ways of seeing.
“I love the idea of discovering that two things that have no relationship are the same size and color. It’s like a chef who discovers that bananas are perfectly okay with fish—there are new relationships that when made, come to life,” Chermayeff once said. “Collage makes it possible for everything to be something else.”
Take a deeper dive into the exhibition with curator Beth Kleber, as she unpacks Chermayeff’s personal works alongside his professional pieces and draws parallels between the two.
Hero image: Mrs. Lovell at the Window, 2015. Mixed media collage, 16.5 x 13.5 in.