Throughout the 2021–2022 school year, School of Visual Arts will commemorate the life of Milton Glaser, the former acting chairman of the board. The festivities include an exhibition of Glaser's physical and philosophical contributions to the school since 1960, including artifacts rare and unknown, produced to inform and delight.
The first of the year's manifestations is the Glaser Gazette, a broadsheet publication scheduled for Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 that's filled with Glaser lore, facts and recollections from friends and students.
Vol. 1, "Glaser 101," proposes a class devoted to his credo that "good design" should do no harm.
Unique among the few iconic designer-artist-illustrators to hold sway over various design disciplines from the mid-20th century to the present, Milton Glaser was a compass for generations of professionals. He left indelible marks on the mass popular culture and on SVA in particular.
From the moment he joined the faculty in 1960 he assumed the role of SVA’s heart and soul, in part through proactive and advisory roles in curricula, social initiatives, exhibitions and other public outreach. His evolutionary teaching methods challenged the status quo as it was more than a menu of techniques and styles that could be mastered or mimicked. Milton Glaser was the face and a conscience of SVA, the designer of an ethical framework where art and life intersected in order to empower and enhance all people.
Let’s just imagine a course devoted to and influenced by the life and work of Milton Glaser.
Copies are available for free around the SVA campus.
