Norman Ives has an historic place in the American Mid-Modern canon as a member of a crew that used typefaces as art. It was not until after his passing in 1978 that I became aware that his work contributed to placing the Yale School of Art—a modern design hot-house under Josef Albers—on the map. Ives’ design and art appeared to be an outlier of the percolating type-as-art movement that may have been popularized by Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculptures, but has since become ubiquitous not just in painting and sculpture but other massive architectural “type works.” Ives’ work fits squarely into this genre that has roots in the early 20th-century Modern movement. I feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to become absorbed in his work through an as-yet-unpublished book: Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions by John T. Hill. Ives has been examined before, but not with the same intensity as many of his peers and followers. Hill has done his job well. I asked him to explain his interest in this relatively forgotten yet no less significant Modern master. Why are you working to preserve Norman Ives’ legacy? While Ives is perhaps best known for his designs, his paintings and collages are collected by major museums: The 1967 Whitney Annual exhibition of American painting, the Guggenheim Museum, YUAG and various others. An artist with this wide-ranging recognition leaves a rare legacy and one worth preserving. Were you colleagues and friends? What is it about Ives’ work that makes him a “modern master”? Was his intent to design and then transition to painting, or did he feel the two arts could co-exist? He was a renowned teacher at Yale. What distinguished him from the other luminaries? This was balanced by his equally demanding assignments dealing with formal aspects of letters and lines of type, very similar to Josef Albers’ teaching methods at the Bauhaus. It’s hard to imagine, but in the Yale Art School of the 1960s especially, there were awards given to teachers by their peers and students. Several years Ives received that award. What do you want to ultimately achieve by making his work accessible? PRINT is back. And soon, we’ll be relaunching with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future. Stay tuned. The post The Lives of Ives appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr The Lives of Ives
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Charles Gorton
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April 2020
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