Been meaning to post this for a while but been a bit busy lately! The 'Kemistry Gallery' in London has a Saul Bass poster exhibition on at the moment, below is some of the blurb to go with the exhibition.
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Bass Notes: The back story
Jim Northover of design consultancy Lloyd Northover explains the origin of the posters in the exhibition:
“A year or so after Saul’s death in 1996, I got a call from a headhunter in the States saying that she had a brief to find someone to take over the Saul Bass studio in Los Angeles. Herb Yager, Saul’s partner, no longer wanted to run it himself, but was keen for the business to continue. Since we had been looking to set up an office in the US, this seemed like a real opportunity. After Herb was reassured that he had found suitable inheritors, the business was acquired. We celebrated the event at a dinner at the Beverley Hills Hotel with Herb, Elaine Bass (Saul’s widow) and some of the team.
A few months later we found we had inherited something else. A travelling exhibition of Saul’s film posters had been doing the rounds of film festivals all over the world. One day it arrived back in London. We had to store it and look after it. We soon realised it was too big and expensive a task to keep it properly, so we handed it on to the British Film Institute, requesting that it should not be lost from public view, and hopefully shown from time to time. The posters on show, thanks to the BFI, are the very same ones that formed part of the travelling exhibit. They were produced by the Saul Bass studio in the 1990s to celebrate Saul’s work. Many air miles later these historic originals are now on show here.”
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Mrs AP and myself went along this weekend and had a good look around, initially I was annoyed as all the posters on display were mounted on board and weren't the classic designs I know (this was before reading the shows blurb!). I asked the lady at the gallery what the score was and she said these designs were how Saul Bass wanted the artwork to be used. After designing them in the 90's there were small screen printed editions done of some/all!
The gallery emailed me a PDF and about 12 images of the posters, after looking at the images they sent I noticed some of them are different to the designs in the show (notice the Vertigo on the wall has the people at the bottom and the image supplied, below, they're in the middle). I've taken a few photos on my phone and when I get a chance I'll post them here.
Not sure if all of this is well known or not, but I found it very interesting!
AP
