American typographic designer, art director and photographer. After settling in the USA in 1930, he established a reputation as one of the most influential art directors of the 20th century. He was best known for his 24-year career (1934–1958) at the American magazine Harper’s Bazaar and for his Design Laboratory, operated first under the auspices of the Philadelphia Museum School (1936–40) and then (1941–59) of the New School for Social Research and the American Institute of Graphic Arts, both in New York. Through his work at Harper’s, Brodovitch revolutionized modern magazine design by forging a greater integration of typography, text and photography. His innovative layouts and numerous cover illustrations for the magazine popularized the techniques of montage, full-bleed paging and strategic sequencing of photographs that fostered interactive readership. In 1945 Brodovitch published Ballet, an influential book featuring his own photographs of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo taken between 1935 and 1939. The book’s blurred, fast-paced, almost Surrealist photographs suggest Brodovitch’s preference for unconventional framing and juxtaposition, while its sequencing demonstrated for many the fundamental principles underlying his art direction and instruction. During his years teaching the Design Laboratory courses in New York, Brodovitch directly affected the careers of several important photographers, including Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Lisette Model. His influence on graphic design and photography continued to be manifest in magazine and book publishing at the end of the 20th century.
James Crump
From Grove Art Online
© 2009 Oxford University Press