The Italian influences on American culture are far-reaching and well-documented. Yet, with a few exceptions of some key figures chronicled in graphic design histories, the work by Italian graphic designers published in America is less well known. From Fortunato Depero’s move to New York City in 1928 to Unimark International’s work of the 1960s and 1970s, Italian graphic designers were living and publishing important work in the U.S. This talk will introduce Italian-born designers (and a few “adopted” Italians) who contributed commercial graphic design in America during the pre and post World War II eras from approximately 1928 until 1980. This prolific network of collaborators, with their poetic forms and unique achievements, played a significant role in coalescing modern graphic design in America.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER Greg D’Onofrio is a designer, writer, educator, and co-founder of Display, Graphic Design Collection. Greg has curated, lectured, and written about twentieth-century, modern graphic design history subjects ranging from: Bruno Munari and Franco Grignani to Lester Beall, Elaine Lustig Cohen and Morton and Millie Goldsholl. Greg teaches the History of Graphic Design and the International Typographic Style at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is co-author (with Steven Heller) of The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design (Abrams Books, 2017); Italian Types: Graphic Designers from Italy in America (Corraini Edizioni, Italy, 2019) and a contributor to: Up Is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio (Block Museum of Art, 2019).
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