Lester Beall 1903-1969 Radio/Rural Electrification Administration. Circa 1930s. 40 x 30.75 inches. Condition A. Silkscreen. In the 1930s after a traditional education in Chicago, Lester Beall became interested in avant-garde typography and in the

Lester Beall 1903-1969 Radio/Rural Electrification Administration. Circa 1930s. 40 x 30.75 inches. Condition A. Silkscreen. In the 1930s after a traditional education in Chicago, Lester Beall became interested in avant-garde typography and in the design elements of theBauhaus. He moved to New York in 1935 where he began an extraordinarily successful career as an Art Director. Not only did he create world-acclaimed logos and corporate identities for such companies as American International Paper, Merrill Lynch, Caterpillar,Martin Marieta and the New York Hilton, but working for the publisher Mcgraw-Hill he redesigned 20 of their magazines. In 1937 he was the first American designer to have a one man show at the Museum of ModernArt. In 1937 Beall was one of the first designers commissioned by the U.S. Government to help promote the Rural Electrification Administration. The four posters he created in this series for the R.EA. including Wash Day, Running Water and Light pitched basic, modern amenities to the hinter lands of America, where many such "luxuries" were virtually unknown. The R.E.A. existed not only to help rural America enter into the modern age but also served to create jobs for aDepression-ravaged country. Elevating visual communication to an extremely efficient level, Beall's style involves a technique close tothe ideogram, employing basic, clear and direct images, free from any exterior influences that would lessen the pure message. At a time whenthe majority of the American populace was largely illiterate, Beall's simple silk-screen, in patriotic red, white and blue, amply conveys the message of getting radio into every home with hardly an text at all, and has been referred to as "a benchmark in the history of graphic design" Posters American Style, p. 126 ill. Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, 1998 - p. 155, plate 75 rel. Nine Pioneers in American Graphic Design,The Mit Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989 - p.86- 103