GENESIS: GEORGE LOIS
City University of New York, New York, September 2017
Cultural provocateur. Big idea pioneer. Voice of an era. Advertising legend.
George Lois earned these titles, and the numerous Hall of Fame accolades that go with them, over the course of a distinguished six decade career in advertising. The mastermind behind revered promotionals for MTV, Tommy Hilfiger, Stoffer’s and countless other companies, Lois is widely considered to be one of the foremost art directors in American history. Yet arguably his greatest contribution to communication design was not an ad campaign but a series of magazine covers. Between 1962 and 1972 Lois created ninety-two covers for Esquire that helped rebrand the magazine from a mens’ monthly to a sophisticated repository of “New Journalism” writing. Given complete creative autonomy by editor Harold Hayes, Lois devised covers that were not merely visual regurgitations of the magazine’s contents but revolutionary conceptual ideas all their own. Like a sharpener with a dull pencil, Lois’s incisive covers honed the magazine’s image while rewriting creative, political and social convention. Today, half a century later, Lois’s Esquire designs remain provocative, offering the viewer unique insight into our culture’s struggles with racism, sexism, power and violence, both past and present.
The enduring influence of Lois’s Esquire covers on the field of advertising art can not be underestimated, their value as an educational tool for young designers not overlooked. Born to Greek immigrant parents and raised in the Bronx just seven miles from this campus, Lois’s life and work mirror City College’s mission to defy convention, advocate for change and embrace diverse communities. With this in mind, last year Lois generously donated his archives to CCNY in the hopes of sharing his knowledge with future generations and helping students reach these lofty goals. Highlighting one part of this vast and valuable collection, this exhibition presents twenty-seven of Lois’s most iconic Esquire covers alongside their preparatory sketches for the first time ever. In so doing it gives us a glimpse into the genesis behind a great adman’s “big ideas.”
