Alexey Brodovitch collection

Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) was a pioneering art director, whose twenty-five-year tenure at Harper's Bazaar (1934-1958) makes him a key figure in editorial design history. Brodovitch was born in Russia in 1898 to a wealthy military family. He ran away from home at age 16 to join the Russian army. During the Russian Civil War, he fought for the White Army against the Bolsheviks. He was badly wounded and hospitalized during the fighting. The Bolsheviks surrounded the town where Brodovitch was in hospital forcing him to flee. While escaping through the Caucasus he met his future wife Nina. He was reunited with his family who then fled from Russia to France. It was there that he began to seriously study art and design. In 1930 he was offered a job in Philadelphia teaching at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. He advanced quickly within the school and by 1933 he was teaching advanced students in his Design Laboratory. Many well known artists of the twentieth-century were students of Brodovitch's during this time including: Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Hiro, and Diane Arbus. By 1934, Brodovitch had been offered a job at Harper's Bazaar. The Hearst publication hoped to revamp their look giving it a more modern twist. They selected Alexey to lead the change, creating his own unique design asthetic for the magazine. He remained at the magazine for many years. In his later years the celebrated artist suffered from bouts of depression and alcoholism following his wife's death. The influential art director is recognized by many as being a revoluntionary influence on twentieth-century art and design.