Milton Glaser, who became a National Medal of Arts recipient last week, may be America’s most treasured graphic designer, but his best work has often belied his fascination with painters.
Glaser studied etching under the Italian still-life painter Giorgio Morandi, and has cited Morandi and Picasso as his two major artistic influences. His most famous poster, one of Bob Dylan, referenced a self-portrait by the French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, and this masterwork, my personal favorite, is a direct homage to the Belgian Surrealist, Rene Magritte.
“I’m interested in all the things that have happened in the visual world…my influences are more outside the profession than inside it. I never use the profession as a guide for what I aspire to. I’ve always believed that you could do everything.” Easy to say, when you’ve done everything.
