MOMA poster, 1985

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Lillian Feldman Schwartz

1985

37.25"x23.25"

Description

In 1982, Lillian Schwartz was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to produce a television commercial and matching poster to announce the opening of the museum’s new building on 53rd Street. Alternatively titled BIG MOMA, Schwartz based the poster design on the French sculptor Gaston Lachaise’s Standing Woman (1933). Other artworks and images sampled from MoMA’s collection fill the figure’s body, stretched and warped to map its contours. Jasper Johns’s Target with Four Faces (1955) rests across one kneecap, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn (1967) spans her crotch, and Henry Moore’s Family Group (1950) appears over her womb. The poster later toured in SIGGRAPH’s 1985 exhibition, for which this edition was likely produced.

Schwartz made the television commercial and poster using IBM PC vector software she developed with Bell Labs engineer Richard Voss. In the acceptance speech for the Emmy she won for the commercial, Schwartz said: “I also wish to thank my camera person, the lighting director, and the dozens of engineering assistants who helped in this film. They all happen to have the same name: my computer.”