Stanley Tigerman : Yaleiana

Stanley Tigerman
Paintings & Multiples:
“I Pledge Allegiance to the Lozenge and to the Implications for Which it Stands, No. 8,”
1964
Liquitex on mounted canvas, 36" x 36"
Image ©Stanley Tigerman

Lozenge refers to a rhombus with acute angles of 45° to form a diamond. This piece is included in:

A series of oil and acrylic paintings from the mid-1960s [which] drew from Josef Albers, who had taught at Yale during the period 1950–58; these are Tigerman's Op Art experiments with the paradoxical effects created through the medium of geometry.

—information taken from the exhibition, Cesi n‘est pas une rêverie: The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman.

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Study for Homage to the Square: Pale Autumn, 1963

 

Photograph by versluis. 

The following information is taken from the MCA Chicago didactic:

Josef Albers (American, b. Germany, 1888–1976)
Study for Homage to the Square: Pale Autumn, 1963

Oil on board. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Mr. Edward Weiss, 1974.13 

Albers was an influential teacher as well as artist, bringing ideas from the famous Bauhaus art school in Germany to the United States when he emigrated here in 1933. His theories on the perceptual effects of color were particularly important, and in works such as this he shows how a sense of spatial depth can be created through subtle changes within a single color range.

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“The Formal Generators of Structure”

Stanley Tigerman
The Formal Generators of Structure
1965-68
Oil on panel
34 inches x 34 inches
images: ©Stanley Tigerman

Image from the Graham Foundation’s exhibition of Stanley Tigerman, Cesi n‘est pas une rêverie:

Architectonic extensions of my Albers-motivated paintings and sculptures, these forms work out in three dimensions basic, orthogonally historical archetypes. After three years of moving toward bifocal vision, I felt it time to stop before the world of polyhedra took over. —Stanley Tigerman

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“with a grid, but with no memory”

 

Chicago Architectural Foundation: “Models of visionary plans from the past float over the Chicago Model.”

Instant City 
Stanley Tigerman
1966
Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway

An inscription from Tigerman’s retrospective exhibition at The Graham Foundation earlier this year stated:

Stanley Tigerman’s native Chicago has been a vital component of his self-identity. As a city “with a grid, but with no memory,” Chicago is truly the progeny not only of its pragmatist culture but also of the architectural hegemony of Mies van der Rohe. …  

The image above is from an exhibition at the Chicago Architectural Foundation. Documentation for this model explains:

Stanley Tigerman rethought the urban tower with Instant City, a proposal that makes use of underutilized space above an expressway. While infrastructure often challenges the continuity of the urban design, Instant City takes advantage of the highway by leaping over it. Each tower consists of two slim legs that lean against one another. Visitors travel on diagonal elevators through the lower commercial floors into the upper stories, which contain apartments.

This project shows how megastructures can reconnect cities divided by transportation networks.  

Model courtesy DSM’s Somos® Materials group.

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Envelope art by Carl Regehr, 1983

Above is an example of one of Carl Regehr’s delightful envelopes and Polaroids (Jazz is shown) that were on display at the STA 85th anniversary celebration in Chicago last month. The show celebrated and featured numerous pieces of imaginative envelope art and Polaroids by Regehr. A remarkable thing about Carl was that he could pre-visualize and sketch out his design concepts with great coherency.

The envelopes and Polaroids were from correspondence between Regehr and Victor Margolin in 1983. Margolin was instrumental in developing the discipline of design history at University of Illinois Chicago and Regehr was a beloved design professor at the University in Campaign-Urbana. The envelope illustrated above is postmarked 12 Jan 1983. Regehr died in 1983 after a decade-long battle with cancer.

Also shown above is the accompanying written note and documentation for the Carl Regehr/Victor Margolin project and the exhibit.

True to Carl's idea for the envelope display, event organizer Jack Wiess installed the show with envelopes and corresponding Polaroid typographic collages in plastic bags that hung on a “clothes-line”.

In his hand-writing Regehr suggests to Margolin:

For example I could see that at the end of the year there might be 100's of envelopes that could be exhibited in plastic baggies … etc. The project also is valuable because it attempts to share interests and continue the dialogue we established last year.

signed Carlos. (Carl’s Latino persona)

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“The Prisoner”

To reform the Three Strikes Law in California, artist John August Swanson featured an image from his 1975 screen print tryptych titled “The Prisoner” for a postcard. The postcard is to help generate awareness and support for California Proposition 36, which is on the November 6th ballot. Proposition 36 would stop keeping non-violent people in prison for life and ensure justice and fair sentencing.

Voting yes would revise the three strikes law to impose life sentence only when the new felony conviction is serious, or violent, and authorizes re-sentencing for offenders currently serving life sentences.

“The Prisoner” is one of several early Swanson serigraphs that are currently on display at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. The collection is on loan from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Chicago design luminaries

The newest STA (Society of Typographic Arts) publication, “Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals” (1968–1983) was recently introduced at the STA 85th anniversary celebration. I had the opportunity to attend the recent STA 85th anniversary celebration in Chicago on Friday, October 26 and was thrilled to have several Chicago design luminaries autograph my copy of the book. Above is photograph of the title page spread with the signatures of Jack Weiss, Susan Jackson Keig, Robert Vogele, and Norman Perman.

Interestingly, Susan Jackson Keig, who had been one of Moholy-Nagy’s first students at the New Bauhaus in Chicago during the late 30s and early 40s, said that Moholy also taught business courses because money was so tight for the design school.

In this blog I’ve published a couple of pieces about Carl Regehr (1919-1983) who was one of Chicago’s best designers and educators, an Honorary Member of The STA, recepient of its Design Educator Award in 1983 the excellent designer and design educator. The STA organization of mainly graphic design professionals was brought back about a decade ago. From its inception the STA has had a robust series of events, hosted visiting designers and produced several noteworthy publications.

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