Lester Beall papers
Scope and Contents
The collection is divided into four series: Client Correspondance, Project, and Documentation Files, Bibliographic Files, Biographic Files,and Business Files. Client Correspondance, Project, and Documentation Files includes the bulk of the collection. It includes sample work for clients as well as propsals, sketches, and correspondance. Also included in the first series are volumes of Beall's portfolio.
The second series, Bibliographic Files includes writings about Beall and correspondance between Beall and the author if present.Also included are both published and unpublished writings by Beall, public appearances made by Beall, including invitiations and lecture notes from events, exhibition records, and journal submissions.
Series III. Biographic Files contains writings, photographs and records documenting both, Beall's professional and personal life. Wrtitings are done by Beall, his wife, or his staff. Also included is paintings and drawings done by Beall, audio recordings, and awards Beall recieved during his career.
The last series, Business Files includes client lists, fan letters, billings, and financial records.
Dates
- 1911-1984
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open to researchers.
Biographical / Historical
A pioneer of twentieth-century American graphic design, Lester Thomas Beall
was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 14 March 1903; his childhood years were
spent in St. Louis and Chicago. Beall was educated at Chicago's Lane
Technical School and began his design career in 1927, the year following his
graduation from the University of Chicago. He married Dorothy Wells Miller in
1928 and they were the parents of two children, Lester Beall, Jr., born in
1928, and Joanna May Beall, born in 1935.
By 1935 Beall had decided to move to New York and in September of that year
opened a studio/office/apartment in Tudor City on Manhattan's east side. In
1936, while maintaining his office in New York, he moved to Wilton,
Connecticut where he established his home and office in a rural setting. He
was to remain in Wilton until 1950. Many of the significant work from this
period were done in his studio in Wilton. Through the 1930s and 40s Beall
produced innovative and highly regarded work for the Chicago Tribune, Sterling
Engraving, The Art Directors Club of New York, Crowell Publishing Company,
Hiram Walker, Abbott Laboratories, Time Magazine and the United States
Government's Rural Electrification Administration, among others.
Beall had moved his office to 580 Fifth Avenue by 1946 and worked from there
as well as from his rural Connecticut home and studio, Dumbarton Farm in
Brookfield Center, which he had purchased in 1950. In 1952 Beall took an
office at 60 Sutton Place in Manhattan; in 1955 he moved to consolidate all
his operations at Dumbarton Farm, developing some of the working farm's
outbuildings into professionally praised office and studio space.
During the 1950s and 60s Beall's design office expanded both its staff and
scope, adding associate designers and mounting full scale corporate
identification campaigns for large companies such as International Paper,
Caterpillar Tractor, Martin Marietta and Rohm and Haas. Beall incorporated
his business in June of 1960 and it continued in operation until shortly after
his death on June 20, 1969.
Throughout his career Lester Beall was a highly respected designer whose
thoughts and principles made him a favored lecturer in professional and
educational circles. He wrote, and was written about, extensively, and his
work was regularly featured in American and international design periodicals
and books. During his lifetime he participated in more than one hundred
exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including over ten one-man shows,
and won over 150 professional awards for his graphic and package designs as
well as his personal oil and watercolor paintings.
The Lester Beall Collection consists of an extensive written and visual
collection documenting a lifetime of distinguished professional achievement.
The correspondence, photographs, design samples, published and unpublished
writings, biographical material and business papers were assembled by Beall,
his staff and, especially, his devoted wife of 41 years, Dorothy Miller Beall.
It provides a remarkably comprehensive record of the designer and his life,
and reveals every phase of the creative process which has established Lester
Beall's contribution to the history of graphic design in America.
Extent
41 Linear Feet (77 document boxes 33 oversize boxes 15 notebooks 45 posters 1 framed canvas painting)
Language
English
Overview
Collection of materials from graphic designer Lester Beall. The collection includes client correspondence, client publications, portfolios, and writings on and by Beall. Awards, speeches, exhibitions, business records are also included in the collection.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into four series: Series I. Client Correspondance, Project, and Documentation Files, Series II. Bibliographic Files, Series III. Biographic Files, and Series IV. Business Files.
Physical Location
Cary Graphic Arts Collection.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Lester Beall Collection was given to Rochester Institute of Technology in 1984 by Joanna Westermann Beall and Lester Beall, Jr.
Processing Information
Collection processed by Sandra Markham, 1986-1989.
Finding aid encoded by Megan Moltrup, April 2012.
- Advertising -- Drugs
- American Institute of Graphic Arts
- Audiotapes
- Caterpillar Tractor Company
- Color transparencies
- Connecticut General Life Insurance Company
- Corporation reports
- Correspondence
- Crowell Publishing Company
- Designers -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Diazotypes (copies)
- Drawings
- Drugs -- Packaging
- Dummies (printed matter)
- Graphic artists -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Graphic arts -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Halsman, Philippe
- International Paper Company
- Kertész, André
- Labatt Brewing Company
- Letterheads
- Logos
- Logos (Symbols) -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Logotypes
- Martin Marietta Corporation
- Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, inc
- Mock-ups
- Models (representations)
- Motion pictures (visual work)
- Newman, Arnold
- Pamphlets
- Photographs
- Plans (drawings)
- Posters
- Rohm and Haas Company
- Scope publication (Kalamazoo, Mich.)
- Sketches
- Slides (photographs)
- Stats (copies)
- Tear sheets
- Torrington Manufacturing Company
- Trademarks
- Trademarks -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- United States Lines Company
- United States. Rural Electrification Administration
- Upjohn Company
- West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company
- negatives (photographs)
- Title
- Lester Beall papers
- Subtitle
- Cary Graphic Design Archives
- Author
- Megan Moltrup
- Date
- 13 April 2012
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection Repository