Curious George
Author of this post: Johanna Lenander | About Blog Authors »
Magazine covers usually aim to please. The idea seems to be that if a cover image offends as few people as possible, as many people as possible will buy the magazine. MOMA’s current exhibition of George Lois’s legendary Esquire covers proves the opposite to be true. Between 1962 and 1972, Lois’s provocative, opinionated, funny and sometimes even angry work boosted the magazine’s sales figures to hit record highs. The small but eloquent exhibition is a celebration of his vision. As in a strong, uncompromising vision imagined and executed by one person who was left alone by marketing departments and anxious editors. The covers are clean and simple graphically, often featuring a powerful photograph or photo montage against a white background. “There is no design,” said Lois, a sharp and ebullient 77-year-old native New Yorker, at the press viewing last week, “It’s the architecture of an idea.”
Those ideas included Muhammad Ali posing as the Christian martyr Saint Sebastian and Vice President Hubert Humphrey rendered as a ventriloquist’s dummy on President Johnson’s lap, not exactly feel-good concepts. Instead they were thought provoking and exciting. The high newsstand sales indicate that people welcomed images that tapped into the controversial issues of the day, such as racism, feminism and the Vietnam war. The covers’ success ensured Lois’ complete creative freedom, which seems incredibly exotic by today’s standards. “Direction? What direction? I had lunch with [Esquire editor] Harald Hayes and he told me what the big stories were in the next issue were and then I got an idea and went off to work on it,” he said matter-of-factly, “There was no direction.”
As Lois described the process behind his most renowned images, he also peppered his anecdotes with funny imitations of eccentric subjects like Andy Warhol and stiff company men in the magazine’s publishing department. It took a strong personality to challenge all the preconceived (and post-conceived) standards for what a magazine cover should be, and Lois is no wallflower. But what really stood out was his joy and enthusiasm. Lois seemed to really have fun creating those covers. Perhaps that’s what’s missing from the glossy pages with bland celebrity smiles that currently flood newsstands.
