Last year, I received a proposal for the first-ever monograph on Bea Feitler, The Wonder Woman of Art Direction, from veteran art and creative director Serge Ricco. Last week, I received a follow-up that further convinced me that Feitler, who died in 1982 at 44 years old, was a pioneer in search of a legacy. Ricco’s email included a PDF of an article recently published in Electra, a Portuguese quarterly magazine.
The article begins:
From Rio de Janeiro to New York, in her short 44-year life, Brazilian designer and art director Bea Feitler was everything and did everything. She created books, albums, posters and iconic covers, working for the most important American magazines of her time, while leaving her mark of creative and visionary talent on all of them: Harper’s Bazaar, Ms. magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair. She worked closely or collaborated with personalities such as Richard Avedon, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Marvin Israel, Andy Warhol, Ruth Ansel and Annie Leibovitz. She had the Midas touch: Everything she touched turned into visual gold. This key figure in the history of graphic design is portrayed here by Serge Ricco, who, alongside other activities in the field of visual arts, was art director of the prestigious French magazine L’Obs.
Feitler closely collaborated as co-art director with Ruth Ansel on Harper’s Bazaar, expanding upon the heritage of previous art directors Alexey Brodovitch, Henry Wolf and Marvin Israel. Then she became the founding art director of MS. magazine. In 1982, she designed the dummy issue for the relaunch of Vanity Fair. That same year she died of cancer.
In addition to the above link to Ricco’s welcome essay on Feitler’s professional life, below are excerpted spreads, including the cover for ODesign De Bea Feitler by Feitler’s nephew, Bruno Feitler (published only in Portuguese), from the proposed English language monograph to be co-authored by Feitler and Ricco. I hope this will stimulate deserved attention for the book and an exhibition in the US and UK.
