Avant Garde magazine / Ralph Ginzburg and Herb Lubalin / Château Cramirat Collection
Under the editorial leadership of Ralph Ginzburg and the artistic direction of Herb Lubalin, the seminal magazine Avant Garde had a huge impact. But beyond its earth-shattering content, it was groundbreaking from a design standpoint. The mag was radically future-facing.
Taboos are meant to be broken, and Avant Garde’s 14 volumes (1/1968 – 7/1971) certainly rattled some nerves in the late 1960s. We’re thrilled to have the originals in our collection.
Filled with scathing criticism about society and politics in America, Avant Garde pushed boundaries about sex, race, and gender, jolting stagnant mores with breakthrough work by some of the era’s cultural luminaries.
Avant Garde was the third and most successful collaboration between Ginzburg and Lublin (after Eros and Fact), cut short by Ginzburg’s criminal case. The US government claimed he was “part of an international Communist plot,” but, rumors say this sensationally unjust legal entanglement may have been a vendetta of sorts, involving the church, President Kennedy, his wife and brother, and nude photos of Merlyn Monroe published in Eros. Be it as it may, Avant Garde is undoubtedly a landmark publication in the history of modern design.
One of the magazine’s greatest legacies is the Avant Garde typeface, designed by Lubalin for its logo. The story goes that Ginzburg’s wife, Shoshana, helped bring it about by inspiring Lubalin to picture the publication as a jet taking off into unknown territory, “something nobody had seen before.” Lubalin’s logo was soon expanded into a full typeface, now considered a typographic icon of the times.
The Château Cramirat Collection is a treasure trove of art and design, by philosopher Anna Ravitzki and designer Dan Alexander, housed in a 12th-century Templar landmark in the Valley of Mankind, Périgord, France.
Lubalin, Herb (Art Director); Ginzburg, Ralph (Editor and Publisher). Avant Garde, Volume 4, Sept 1968; Volume 9, Nov 1969; and Volume 11, Jan 1970. NY: Avant Garde, 1968, 1969, 1970.
