Alexey Brodovitch

Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) was born in Ogolitchi, Russia to an aristocratic family.  His father was a respected doctor, providing his services to many humanitarian causes. During Brodovitch’s younger years, his family sent him to the Prince Tenisheff School with the hopes of him later enrolling at the Imperial Art Academy. However, Brodovitch abandoned his studies and ran away to join the Russian Army when World War I erupted. While attending a Military Academy, the Russian Revolution unfolded and Brodovitch became a white loyalist – loyal to the Czar.  After unfortunate losses and failed attempts to fight off the Reds, Brodovitch was exiled to Paris where his true existence as an artist would begin. During Brodovitch’s years in Paris, he was exposed to new aspects of life: a life of poverty and life as an artist. It was this combination that allowed the young man to succeed, becoming one of the world’s most influential graphic designers.

Brodovitch was introduced to the avant-garde movement while working in Paris. Influenced by the aforementioned movement, he embraced and evolved his own stylistic features, which inspired the work he created in the United States. As Andy Grundberg states, “He played a crucial role in introducing into the United States a radically simplified, ‘modern’ graphic design style forged in Europe in the 1920s from an amalgam of vanguard movements in art and design.”  This new approach was seen through his unique way of teaching design studios in New York before Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, hired Brodovitch to invigorate the magazine with a modern spirit. It was at Harper’s Bazaar that Brodovitch would imprint the world with his gift.

Brodovitch departed from the static layouts and traditionally posed studio photographs prevalent in 1930s editorial design. Instead, he emphasized the double-page spread as a dynamic field upon which exquisite photographs, crisp Bodoni typefaces, and elegant white space were arranged into a total composition. Margarete Gross explains, “The double-page spread was one of his signature innovations, as was the emphasis on negative space in layouts.” By the 1950's, white space was the hallmark of the Brodovitch style. Models “floated” on the page, encompassed in a sea of whiteness, while headlines and type took on an ethereal presence. Brodovitch was able to create an illusion of elegance from the mere hint of materiality. Clothes were presented not as pieces of fabric cut in singular ways, but as signs of a fashionable life.

Brodovitch’s layouts remain models of graphic intelligence and inspiration, even if seldom imitated, and the artists, photographers and designers whose careers he influenced continue to shape graphic design in the image of his uncompromising ideals.