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Cipe Pineles papers

 Collection
Identifier: CSC-0104

Scope and Contents

This collection predominately contains work from Cipe Pineles' professional career, from art director, designer for independent clients, and design professor. For process work, the archive holds sketches, original gouache artwork, photostats, paste-ups, and book maquettes, as well as collected source material suggesting inspiration and research. Printed materials include brochures, posters, and other promotional material for Parsons and Lincoln Center. Personal objects include correspondence, original artwork, artwork belonging to her son, Tom Golden, and her teaching materials from Parsons.

Dates

  • Creation: 1908-1991

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to researchers.

Biographical / Historical

Cipe Pineles (1908-1991) was one of the most prominent designers of the twentieth century and one of the first female art directors to work at a major magazine. She served in that capacity at Glamour, Seventeen and Charm. The Cipe Pineles collection came to RIT in 1991 and was deposited by Cipe Pineles's two adopted children: Tom Golden and Carol Burtin Fripp.

-- Cipe Pineles was born in Vienna, Austria in 1908. She attended high school in Brooklyn, and went to Pratt Institute, where she won a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Scholarship. After graduation, and what she calls an “adventurous” year in the still-life painting business, she became assistant in 1932 to M.F. Agha, then art director of Condé Nast publications. She stayed at Condé Nast long enough to become a 10-year-test-case of The Art Directors Club’s admission policy toward women, and did in fact become its first female member.

In 1947, she moved to Seventeen as art director, commissioning leading painters to do fiction illustration (on the theory that young readers would have few barriers in accepting fine art). And so the pages were graced by the work of Ben Shahn, Leonard Baskin, Raphael Sayer, Kuniyoshi, Doris Lee, Robert Osborn, Jan Balet, Joe Kaufman, Evalyne Ness, Lucille Corcos, Andy Warhol, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Lindner, and Jerome Snyder.

In 1950, Pineles was named art director of Street & Smith’s Charm, where she and editor Helen Valentine redirected the publication to a then new consumer audience—"women who work". She moved to another Street & Smith publication, Mademoiselle, leaving in 1961 to work as an independent designer and illustrator. Cipe Pineles became design consultant to Lincoln Center in 1967, with the entire graphics program of the Center, from stationery to annual reports, under her supervision. Her communication assignments there also included the corporate symbol design and the monthly Journal and Calendar of Events.

In 1970 she joined the faculty of the Parsons School of Design, becoming director of publication design. The “Parsons Bread Book,” produced as a class project, was republished by Harper & Row in 1974, and the original student version, “Bread,” was included in the 1974 American Institute of Graphic Arts’ prestigious “50 Books Of The Year” show.

She was married to William Golden for 20 years. Several years after his death, in 1959, she married Will Burtin, who died in 1972.

-Art Directors Club, 1975 [edited by LEA]

Extent

96 Linear Feet (: 5" Hollinger document boxes, oversized multipurpose boxes, and map cases)

Language

English

Overview

Collection of materials on Cipe Pineles, a twentieth-century American graphic designer who worked predominately for women's magazines such as Seventeen, Charm, and Glamour.

Physical Location

Graphic Design Archives, Cary Collection Annex, Range 3a.

Other Finding Aids

In addition to this finding aid, an inventory is available below. For more information, please contact the Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

A previous "general box inventory" and "package inventory" are found in the Cary GDA folder under CSC104_Pineles

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was donated by Carole Burtin Fripp and Tom Golden, the children of Cipe Pineles, in 1991 and 2007.

Accession number(s): 2007:001

Processing Information

Finding aid encoded by Lisa Witt, October 2015. Finding aid completed in ArchiveSpace by Lauren Alberque, December 2017.

Subject

Title
Cipe Pineles papers
Status
Under Revision
Subtitle
Cary Graphic Design Archives
Author
Lauren Alberque
Date
14 October 2015
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

Contact:
Rochester NY 14623 US
(585) 475-2408