Dust Jacket Designer Philip Grushkin From Comps To Final

by Stephen J. Gertz

Philip Grushkin working in his Englewood, NJ home studio, c.1950s.

A major archive of renowned dust jacket designer, Philip Grushkin, "whose work made him the standard-bearer throughout the publishing industry," (NY Times obit) is coming to market courtesy of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller. Booktryst got a sneak preview of its catalog, yet another key reference and collectible work as we've come to expect from the NYC-based super dealer.

Philip Grushkin was born in Brooklyn, NYC, in 1921, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He became interested in book dust jacket design as a teen and began collecting them, those of George Salter (1897-1967), the preeminent American dust jacket designer 1935-1965, his primary interest. He attended Cooper Union college as an art student, studying calligraphy and lettering with Salter, who became his mentor. He graduated in 1941.

After the war, he began to free-lance as a jacket designer, working for virtually all of the major New York publishers of the time: Alfred A. Knopf; Random House; Harper and Brothers; Harcourt, Brace and Company; Macmillan; and Doubleday; as well as smaller houses such as Farrar Strauss, John Day, and Crown. He became one of the go-to designers at Knopf because the great book and typeface designer W.A. Dwiggins declined to do dust jackets. Grushkin became part of a select group of dust jacket designers that included Salter, Charles Skaggs, and, on occasion, E. McKnight Kauffer, Herbert Bayer, Paul Rand, and Alvin Lustig.

In 1947 he joined the the fledgling Book Jacket Designers Guild established by Sol Immermann (1907–1983), who, with H. Lawrence Hoffman, produced the jackets for the first one hundred titles published by The Popular Library. The BJDG established a code for dust jacket design, rejecting the poster style in vogue for pulp novels in favor of a descriptive, non-blaring style. Its manifesto, embraced by Grushkin, rejected:

• "The stunt jacket that screams for your attention, and then dares you to guess what the book is about."

• "The jacket that is born of the assumption that if the book has a heroine, or if the author is a woman, or the author's mother a female, the jacket must say SEX."

• "Burlap backgrounds, the airbrush doilies and similar clichés as well as the all too many good illustrations that were stretched, squeezed, tortured and mutilated to fit a jacket format with just enough room left for an unrelated title."

1953.

Grushkin's hallmark, like Salter's, was his creative use of calligraphy and lettering in concert with a lightly drawn illustration. His early work tends to mimic Salter's but in the late 194os his own personal style began to emerge, with an emphasis on lettering and calligraphy often to the exclusion of illustration altogether. Perhaps his most recognizable and typical dust jacket from that period is that for Simone De Bouvier's The Second Sex (1953).

If you are unfamiliar with Grushkin his deceptively simple yet visually aggressive pictorial style is distinctive; once you see a Grushkin book jacket you will begin to see them all over the place on books published during the late 1940s - early 1960s.

"Grushkin forged his own brand of modernism, one that owed nothing to the work of Lustig, Rand, or Herbert Bayer, inventing a unique mixture of bold typographic hand lettering, dynamic background patterns, vibrant colors, and abstract symbolism. By the end of the 1950s, Grushkin’s style was distilled to the point where it resembled Paul Bacon’s 'Big Book Look,' with hand lettering - instead of calligraphy - taking center stage, augmented only by a tonally variegated background" (Paul Shaw, Philip Grushkin: a Designer's Archive, catalog to the collection).

Below, a few examples of Grushkin's work in development, from first comp to final jacket.

The Other Side of the Record (1947):

First comp.

Second comp.

Third comp.

Fourth comp.

Fifth comp.

Final.

The Train From Pittsburgh (1948):

First comp.

Second comp.

Third comp.

Fourth comp.

Fourth comp, side notes.

The fourth comp of Train..., unusually, has notations, not just by Grushkin, but also by "J" at Knopf (likely production manager Sidney Jacobs). Grushkin’s notes refer to the colors he plans to use - blue, red, and yellow - with a reminder that the jacket will be offset printed. The notation by “J” approves the design but suggests substituting the calligraphic lettering of Julian Farren's name to a clean, serif'ed typeface.

Fifth and final.

Mechanical - Shards of Glass.

Mechanical - Lettering.

Helix (1947):

Partial comp.

In what was, apparently, the first (and partial) comp for David Loughlin's novel, Helix (1947), Grushkin employs a blue background, a single swirling spiral, and title lettering running upward on a diagonal from left to right.

First complete comp.

In the above, the first complete comp for the Helix DJ, Grushkin loses the blue background and substitutes red, has the title lettering on a downward diagonal from left to right, acutely triangulates the author and title, features a series of smudgy, overlapping spirals, and adds a tiny ship moving along a black plane.

Second complete comp.

Grushkin's second complete comp for Helix refined his design in the first comp, downplaying the swirling spirals,  deleting the ship's black path, and adding black "gears," elements that made it to the final published dust jacket.

Final.

Grushkin's final design for Helix cleans up, clarifies, and polishes the second comp.

Limbo mechanical.

Final.

The lettering mechanical for an early comp of Grushkin's DJ for Bernard Wolfe's classic science-fiction novel, Limbo (1952) bears a different subtitle than the final. "A Voyage of Discovery and Adventure in the Fantastic World of 1990" must have seemed a tantalizing teaser in 1952. The teaser to the final certainly hammers it home: "A diabolic tale - mad, merry and monstrous - of men and women caught in the vortex of history yet to happen! Check out that mad, merry, and monstrous year, 1990, more frightening that Wolfe could ever have imagined:

• Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces after acting as dictator of Panama for five years.

• Notorious Gambino crime family leader John "the Dapper Don" Gotti was arrested and charged with racketeering, murder, and various and sundry illegal activities.

• Marion Barry, the flamboyant mayor of Washington D.C., was arrested for possession of crack cocaine in an F.B.I. sting set up in a D.C. hotel room.

• British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigned. 

• The first McDonald's restaurant opened in Moscow, becoming for many a symbol of the nation's new progressive free market ideology.

• The World Wide Web was created, along with the first ever web page and web browser.

• Time Inc and Warner Communications, two of the largest media companies in the world merged to create giant Time Warner.

That's some vortex. We're lucky to have made it through 1990 alive.

The Grushkin archive consists of his book jackets (with related comps, roughs and mechanicals); binders of his cover designs for Mercury Publications; letterhead and logo designs; related ephemera; and a collection of book jackets by George Salter: over 2,000 total items in all, 150 of which are highlighted in the catalog, with the largest and most important portion being the dust jackets by Grushkin.

"'His life was literally books,' said his son, Paul, noting that some 10,000 volumes lined the walls of the Grushkins' home.

"Yet, he was an invisible presence, his work evident only to a book's author, the publisher's editorial and design staff, the printer and the bindery" (Times obit).

"My Dad was also a book designer. He handled in his lifetime close to 1500 books, for many publishers, but most for Harry N. Abrams, the worldwide leader in artbooks. He told me a book design is successful when it's invisible, meaning the reader never has to labor to overcome the designer. In a good book design, the grid and typographic elements illuminate the author's concept along with the book's contents. Nothing jars that reader from experiencing the book - nothing in the design is so boastful that it's the designer who's calling out, before anything else, 'look at MY cleverness'" (Paul Grushkin). 

Book lovers, special collections librarians, and aficionados and collectors of dust jackets will be fortunate to score a copy of the Grushkin Archive catalog, luckier still to acquire the archive itself. While it's not unusual to track a writer's progress through their archive, it isn't often that we have an opportunity to see a dust jacket designer in the midst of their process from conception to completion.

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All images reproduced with the express permission of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, with our thanks.
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Drop-Dead Gorgeous Bindings, Bound To Be Great

by Stephen J. Gertz

A binding that declares, Good Grieve!; an American binding that finally shows up amidst all the Anglos; a binding romance at Oxford; a neoclassical binding of an acclaimed edition of the Bible; a Riviere runs through it; and American television's most popular variety show host of all time, purposely confused with an accomplished binder for a cheap laugh, close Booktryst's Bound to Great Week.

The Lives of Illustrious and Eminent Persons of Great Britain.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
Later binding by Andrew Grieve.

The covers to this attractive and animated, gilt and inlaid brown morocco binding are bordered by multiple plain and decorative gilt rules enclosing an unusual gilt frame of baroque-style flowers, leaves, volutes, swirls and quatrefoils, cornerpieces of inlaid red morocco quatrefoils outlined in gilt, a central panel dominated by a red morocco oval medallion adorned with a gilt laurel wreath, the oval with four red morocco petals from which spring gilt fronds and quatrefoils, these terminating at the top and bottom of the panel with ochre morocco-outlined mandorlas containing a gilt floral sprig, the background of the panel exuberantly decorated with many small gilt flowers, inlaid green morocco dots, ochre morocco half moons, and assorted small tools.

Raised bands, elegantly gilt spine compartments with central red morocco oval framed in gilt and with olive branch cornerpieces, turn-ins with gilt frames, marbled endpapers, and all edges gilt complete the binding.

This binding is the work of Andrew Grieve of Edinburgh, the teacher of Charles McLeish, who, for sixteen years, worked as a finisher for at the Doves Bindery under the supervision of Cobden-Sanderson.

SHERARD, Robert Harborough. Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship.
London: Privately printed at the Hermes Press, 1902.
Contemporary binding by Henry Stikeman

Prominent New York binder Henry Stikeman wrought this handsome and elegantly gilt Art Nouveau binding in olive green morocco. Its covers possess multiple plain and decorative gilt rules enclosing a large quatrefoil with very prominent floral cornerpieces and floral tool accents, the central panel on the upper cover containing a coronet imposed upon crossed writing tools. Raised bands, attractively gilt compartments with a large central lily framed by drawer handle tools, intricate gilt floral turn-ins, marbled endpapers, and top edge gilt finish the job.

Beginning toward the end of the nineteenth century into the beginning of the twentieth, Henry Stikeman’s career laid at the center of art bookbinding in America. A Stikeman binding from the 1880s through 1918-1919 represents the firm's best work.

Like a number of Stikeman bindings, this one reflects the contents of the book: the tooling employs the rounded geometrical shapes familiar from the Art Nouveau, and makes prominent use of lilies, Wilde's signature emblem and favorite flower.

BACON, Francis. Novum Organum…
Oxonii: E Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1813.
Contemporary binding by John Rodwell of Oxford.

This mainstream Romantic-period binding, elaborately decorated in gilt and blind by John Rodwell of Oxford on deep purple straight-grain morocco, features covers with a gilt-ruled border and intricate blind-tooled vegetal frame, a central panel with two very complex elongated ornaments in blind and gilt with palmettos, curls, and many small tools, these attached at the head and tail by graceful gilt tendrils with scroll and foliate accents. Four pairs of raised bands with blind tooling between each, densely gilt spine compartments, broad floral decorated turn-ins, blue moire silk endpapers, and all edges gilt complete the binding.

This volume, published in Oxford by Oxford's Clarendon Press and bound by Oxford's John Rodwell, screams...Oxford! John Rodwell did not produce a great many bindings (ABPC records fewer than half a dozen, none later than 1820), but his firm obviously produced fine, distinctive work.

(Bible in English). The Macklin Bible.
London: T. Bensley for T. Macklin
[final volume Bensley for Cadell & Davies], 1800.
Contemporary binding by Georg Friedrich Krauss.

Georg Friedrich Krauss is responsible for this magnificent contemporary neo-classical-style binding of the seven-volume Macklin Bible. Bound in sumptuously gilt and blue-inlaid red stright-grain morocco, it was executed for Duke Albrecht of Saxe-Teschen (with repeated "A S T" monogram).

The covers feature elaborate frames incorporating eleven plain and decorative gilt rules, four inlaid borders of blue morocco, and elegant swirling foliate ornamentation around the central scalloped panel.  Six pairs of raised bands, each flanking a recessed gilt and blue metope and pentaglyph rule, very handsome spine compartments with blue fan-shaped cornerpieces and central gilt-decorated blue medallions within sunburst gilt collars, turn-ins with Greek key pattern in gilt, striking endleaves of turquoise and green watered silk (the Apocrypha endleaves slightly different), finish the binding.

The most prodigious form of scripture in English ever published, the Macklin Bible was often put into ornate bindings, especially by London binders like Staggemeier and his contemporaries. In Vienna, Georg Friedrich Krauss (1806-1876) was the most prominent German bookbinder of his day, and the Duke of Saxe-Teschen was perhaps his most important client. Works from the Krauss bindery have passed through some of the most distinguished collections over the years.

SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles. Adieux à Marie Stuart. (1916).
Illuminated manuscript, calligraphy by Alberto Sangorski.
Binding by Riviere & Sons.

A stunner in elaborately gilt and inlaid dark blue morocco by Riviere & Sons, this manuscript was designed, written out, and illuminated by Alberto Sangorski.

The covers bear a central red morocco escutcheon featuring a rampant lion on a field of densely stippled gilt with the royal crown above it in red morocco and gilt. The crown and shield are both inside a blue mandorla decorated with twining vines, the mandorla, in turn, enclosed by a large frame with lobed cornerpieces, this frame heavily stippled with gilt and inlaid within an exuberantly decorated gilt border outlined by a thin strip of inlaid black morocco and filled with gracefully swirling vines and curls, with each of the four sides of the frame with an ochre morocco-outlined, gilt-latticed compartment with one or two inlaid thistles in green, purple, and gilt.

Raised bands, spine gilt in similarly stippled compartments containing an inlaid acanthus leaf, turn-ins with inlaid black morocco strips enclosing a repeating pattern of gilt leaves, berries, and azured acanthus leaves, ivory moire silk endleaves, and all edges gilt complete this lily already golden.

Designed and illuminated by Sangorski with thirteen three- to four-line initials in red or blue, five red initials of similar size with penwork, two four-line initials in green, purple, and burnished gold, and six large illuminated initials elaborately decorated with flowers and acanthus leaves in shades of purple, mauve, and indigo, all on grounds of burnished gold, three with extensions of flowering stems, title page with lovely frame in purple, blue, and burnished gold emanating from the "A" in the first word of the title, the burnished gold letter containing a large Scottish thistle, first page of text with swirling red hairline borders at head and tail, with blue flowers, thistles, and numerous leaves and bezants of burnished gold, the first word, "Queen," having a large gray initial with white tracery and large brooch ornament at the center, the other letters in burnished gold, all on an elaborately checkered background, the page opposite with a large miniature of Mary Stuart gazing mournfully at France from the stern of a ship boumd for Scotland based on a painting by W. P. Firth and signed with Sangorski's cipher (dated 1916).

Calligrapher and illuminator Alberto Sangorski (1862-1932) was the older brother of Francis Sangorski, co-founder of the renowned Sangorski & Sutcliffe bindery. Alberto, who had started his professional life as secretary to a goldsmith's firm, became attracted to the book arts at age forty-three and began  illuminating manuscripts that were then bound by his brother's firm. Sometime around 1910 Alberto and Francis had a falling out, and the artist went to work for the rival Riviere bindery. Riviere's workmanship here is, as usual, first rate, as are the materials used, and the book is a shimmering example of 20th century handcrafted book art. Sangorski's one-of-a-kind manuscripts are highly prized in collections and in the marketplace.

BEDIER, Joseph. The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.
London: George Allen, 1903.
Contemporary binding by Sir Edward Sullivan.

This exuberantly gilt and inlaid green morocco binding by the Irish binder, Sir Edward Sullivan, is highlighted by more than fifty large floral inlays.

 

The front cover features a wide, scallop-edged gilt frame filled with leafy gilt stems terminating in inlaid orange tulips in the middle of each side, diamond cornerpieces in maroon morocco accented with small morocco daisies and gilt tools. The upper third of the central panel has a prominent and densely gilt oval wreath with inlaid pink roses and leafy stems, all against a stippled background, and a spray of inlaid pink and gilt lilies in the corners above the wreath. The lower two-thirds of the panel feature a particularly striking design incorporating nine long-stemmed gilt lilies with inlaid pink blossoms emanating from a base filled with flowering gilt vines and heart tools against a stippled background.

The lower cover possesses a similar though simpler design. The spine reiterates the design elements. Gilt and inlaid turn-ins repeating the covers' design, and all edges gilt put the star atop the tree.

Sir Edward Sullivan (d. 1928) "was a noted Irish barrister who was interested in both the craft and history of binding. He practiced tooling in gold, signing his work E.S. Aurifex, 'aurifex' indicating that he was responsible for the gold-tooling. According to Sullivan, binding as a craft had become sterile and he, like Cobden-Sanderson, wanted to promote originality of design, declaring 'I see no reason why Ireland should not take the lead in changing all of this'" (J.P.M. Marks, The British Library Guide to Bookbinding, p. 28). 

Binder Ed Sullivan and his apprentice,
Topo Gigio, share a candid moment.
Sullivan was known as the "seriously over-dressed binder."

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Bound To Be Great Week continues:

Monday: Magnificent Bindings, Bound To Be Great.
Tuesday: The Guild of Women Binders, Bound To Be Great.
Wednesday: More Magnificent Bindings, Bound To Be Great.
Thursday: The $65,000 Binding, Bound To Be Great.
Friday: Drop-Dead Gorgeous Bindings, Bound To Be Great.
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All images courtesy of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books, currently offering these books through their just published Catalog 61: Historically Significant and Decorative Bindings 1536-2010, a magnificent production, and an instant and important reference source.

This post impossible without the assistance of Pirages' head cataloger and Booktryst contributor, Cokie G. Anderson.

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Of related interest:

Five Great 20th Century Bindings.

Five Must-See Modern French Bindings.

A Royal (Roger) Payne in the Binding.

Three Must-See Bindings.

Three More Must-See Bindings.

Search our archives under "bindings" to find more fascinating and visually stunning posts on the subject.
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The Art of 18th Century Handwriting

The Peter A. Wick Collection of rare writing manuals and calligraphy books celebrates a dying form of visual art.

by Stephen J. Gertz

Title Page.

TORIO DE LA RIVA Y HERRERO, Torcuato. Arte de escribir
por reglas y con muestras, segun la doctrina de los mejores
autores antiguos y modernos...
Madrid: [La Viuda de Don Joaquin Ibarra], 1802.
Palau 334356. Brunet V, 885. Graesse VII, 174.

When New York City's P.S.2 third-grade teacher Mrs. Stallone patrolled the aisles during penmanship classwork in 1960 we all sat in abject fear of the martinet with piercing eyes and tight, red hair bun.  She was a stern mistress of cursive script and the scourge of poor hand-writers. Her mandate: to transition us from block-lettering to graceful flowing lines and turn  illegible doodles into legible writing.

"Round, curve, and glide, Mr. Gertz!" she despaired of me. And, alas, to this day, an hour after I've hand-written something, I can't decipher what I wrote.

Proper position for holding stylus.

SANTIAGO Y PALOMARES, Francisco Javier de. Arte nueva
de escribir, inventada por el insigne maestro Pedro Diaz Morante...
Madrid: [En la Imprenta de D. Antonio de Sancha], 1776.
Palau 299945. Berlin 5248. Bonacini 1353.

Correct posture for writing.

ROSSIGNOL, Louis. L'art d'écrire.
Paris: [Chez la Veuve de Pierre Fessard, ca. 1775].
Cf. Bonacini 1567. Berlin 5136. Jessen 2430.

Prior to the dominance of keyboard-based writing, clear, legible cursive penmanship was a necessary skill to communicate. Beyond legibility, however, an artful hand demonstrated good breeding and a cultivated and civilized mind. You were how you wrote as much as what you wrote.

And so as the literacy rate increased in the late seventeenth -through the eighteenth and nineteenth  centuries so did the need for writing manuals for those with lofty goals seeking instruction.

Many of the instructionals carried titles that proclaimed penmanship as an art form - Lucas' Arte de escrevir (1608), L'art d'escrirer par Alais (1698), Araujo's Nova arte de escrever (1794), Arte nuevo de escribir por preceptos geometricos y reglas mathematicas (1719), Rossignol's L'art d'écrire (1775), Torio's Arte de escibir...(1803) are examples - and so it was. Function developed into art form, an evolution of aesthetics.

"S" with calligraphic border.

SCHWANDNER, Johann Georg von. 
Disertatio epistolaris de calligraphiae
nomenclationem, cultu, praæstantia, utilitate.
Viennæ [Ex typographeo Kaliwodiano], 1756.
Bonacini 1663. Berlin 4908. Graesse VIII, 468.

Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting taken to its logical extreme, and is found in all developed cultures. After the Roman Empire fell, each of its former regions in the West evolved their own handwriting standards, generally those of an area's primary monastery, the sites to which writing had retreated along with scholarship, and was preserved, essentially, for the copying of religious manuscripts, particularly the Bible. Most scripts were of a sacred nature, pretty yet near unreadable.

Calligraphic abbreviated names.

OLOD, Luis de. Tratado del origen, y arte de escribir bien.Gerona [En la Imprenta de Narciso Oliva..., ca. post-1768].
Bonacini 1310. Berlin 5247. Palau 201092.

The rise of the Carolingian Empire in Europe during the Dark Ages led to a new, standardized calligraphy. During the eleventh century, Carolingian script developed into Gothic ("blackletter," aka the script that makes readers want to scream for mercy), and in the fifteenth century, Gothic calligraphy was adapted by Gutenberg to become the first movable typeface.

Engraved portrait head of Frederik III
atop calligraphic body and horse.

Lex Regia, Det Er: Den Souveraine Konge-Lov...
København 1709.
Bibliotheca Danica II, 739. Graeese IV, 192.

But type cannot replicate what an artful individual's hand can create, nor was type practical for everyday, pre-keyboard writing. A graceful and elegant handwriting style still spoke to the character of the person wielding the stylus, and, until the advent of the ball-point pen, writing instruments allowed for artful variations in  the thinness and thickness of each stroke. Attractive, visually  impressive handwriting, once a routine aspect of one's education and cultivation, has ebbed to its present status as an arts & craft activity.

Facing archers.

TENSINI, Agostino. La uera regola dello scriuere vtile à giouani.
Bassano: [Remondini, ca. 1790].
Cf. Bonacini 1860. Jammes 30. Ekström, p. 26.

For several decades Peter A. Wick (1920 - 2004) amassed a collection of books focusing exclusively old and rare writing, calligraphy, and pictorial alphabet books, as well as early studies and histories of the development of writing.

Calligraphic initial.

ALBRECHT, Johann Christoph. Vollkkommene
Gründ- und Regulmässige Anweisung...
Nürnberg: {In Verlegung Joh: And: Endterischer Handlung, 1776].
Bonacini 16. Berlin 4921

The Wick Library of writing and calligraphy was acquired by old and rare art book specialist Ars Libri Ltd of Boston, which placed the majority of the Wick volumes with the Library of Congress in September of 2010. Its current Catalogue 155 features of portion of the Wick Collection not adopted for foster care by an institution.

"The most important work on calligraphy...printed in Holland."

VELDE, Jan van den. Spieghel der schrijfkonste
in den welken ghesien worden veelderhande gheschriften
met hare fondementen ende oderrichtinghe wtghegeven.
Amsterdam: [bÿ Willem Iansz, ca. 1609].
Bonacini 1931. Berlin 5010-12.

The collection is another example of a book collector staking out a subject heretofore unexamined, staying sharply focused, building and, in the end, bequeathing a singular and important research library that without the collector's interest would not have existed.

If Mrs. Stallone, long since deceased, is trapped in the hell that we third-graders cruelly consigned her to, one look at these books will cast her immediately into Heaven. They certainly make me ashamed of my chicken-scratches.

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The International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting (IAMPETH), over 500-members strong, has an excellent website, and has scanned and mounted the texts to many old and rare handwriting and penmanship books from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries here.

Wikipedia feaures an excellent primer about calligraphy from around the world.

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All images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd, with our thanks.
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