Wright Auction

If we assume that art is a form of work, it becomes more related to our daily life. When art is defined as an activity driven entirely by the needs of self-expression, I become very nervous. The overwhelming history of art, in fact, has been the history of people doing commissioned works with specific intentions. Michelangelo did not paint the Last Judgement to express himself. He painted it because the Pope wanted to scare the bejeesus out of the congregation.

Milton Glaser

That duration between seeing and understanding is always what you play with in communicating ideas.

Milton Glaser

In 1974, Glaser left Push Pin to establish his own studio; in 1977, he would design what is possibly the most recognizable and imitated graphic in the world — the I ♥ NY logo, expressing, in no uncertain terms, his love for the city. Even though he is most known for the sublime simplicity of I ♥ NY, Glaser’s wide scope of work embraces ambiguity, a joyful “lack of coherence” (as he calls it) and, above all, the assertion that art is work. Glaser has designed over 400 posters, identities for cultural institutions, newspapers, restaurants and grocery stores, he co-founded New York magazine in 1968, and has taught at the lauded School of Visual Arts for over fifty years. But at the center of all this work, this copious outpouring of visual forms, riddles and jubilations, is Glaser’s insistence that design is a fundamentally humanistic act that should do no harm, and express “the commonality and continuity of all human experience”. Glaser personally selected this collection to reflect and celebrate his momentous career on the occasion of his 91st birthday.

The deepest role of art is creating an alternative reality, something the world needs desperately at this time. Art is the most benign and fundamental way of creating community that our species has discovered. Mozart and Matisse — children of Eros — make us more human and more generous to one another.

Milton Glaser