Sunday, November 11, 2012

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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