"Three Lives"
by Gertrude Stein.
New Directions, 1945
279 pages
An important dust jacket designed by Alvin Lustig as part of his seminal New Classics series of designs for New Directions. Taking strong cues from Modern Art, Lustig creates an exceptionally strong graphic abstraction with three female forms (representing the stories of three women in the text) on a simple textured green background. Subtle hand-drawn typography rounds out the style that Lustig developed for this series. Price clipped with the original price listed at $1.75. Some edge wear and fading to the dust jacket, with a tight tear at the seam where the jacket folds over to the spine. Tight binding with an exceptionally clean interior. The jacket is protected by a Brodart dust jacket wrap.
About Alvin Lustig:
Alvin Lustig (1915-1955) was a design generalist who believed in the "power of design when applied to all aspects of life." His work spans the genres of industrial, graphic, and interiors design, but he is perhaps most well known for his book jacket. When he began designing in the 1940's, his work was considered radical, although it was not the type of radicalism that critics feared. His precision and attention to detail alongside a strong penchant for problem solving led Lustig to a legacy that todays graphic designers are much beholden to. His starkly surreal style was reliant on hand cut paper shapes and sparse photographic fragments laid out with a strong sense of the grid.
120502-011
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