Ivan Chermayeff, Thomas Geismar Pan Am U.S.A 1972

Not on view

The graphic design firm Chermayeff & Geismar has designed a wide range of public images: trademarks, advertisements, signs, sculptures, and even world's fair exhibitions. Its work revolves around the viewer, whose understanding and acceptance of an image's visual vocabulary are what make it a success. In these posters for Pan Am World Airways, cultural fantasies and ideals are projected through monumental imagery, presenting people and environments as distant objects of beauty. Rather than engaging with each country's everyday realities, the viewers of these images, potential travelers, remain aesthetic observers.

Gallery label from Here Is Every. Four Decades of Contemporary Art, September 10, 2008–March 23, 2009.

Medium: Offset lithograph
Dimensions: 42 x 28" (106.7 x 71.1 cm)
Credit: Gift of Pan American World Airways
Object number: 63.1972
Department: Architecture and Design

Ivan Chermayeff has 96 works online.
Thomas Geismar has 92 works online.
There are 10,950 design works online.
There are 6,672 graphic design works online.

Installation views

We have identified these works in the following photos from our exhibition history.

Here Is Every. Four Decades of Contemporary Art

Sep 10, 2008–Mar 23, 2009

8 other works identified

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