Barbara Nessim

Internationally renowned artist and illustrator Barbara Nessim’s images of female figures, originating in the counterculture of the 1960s, place her in a tradition of American iconography that extends from Norman Rockwell to Keith Haring. A constant innovator, Nessim incorporates fashion, computers, and photography into her popular art. This book captures not only the work—ranging from the sketchbooks that are the wellspring of her art to prominent magazine assignments, such as a Rolling Stone cover of John Lennon, to elaborate large-scale projects—but also the life that carried her from New York’s high bohemia as a young artist to the world of cutting-edge visual journalism.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Barbara Nessim
Introduction: Under the Radar
David Galloway

Starting Out
Matthew Israel in conversation with Barbara Nessim

Portfolio: Man and the Machine 1960

Anatomizing the Not(e)books
Christoph Benjamin Schulz

Portfolio: Word & Image 1960-1968

Fashion Forward
Anne Telford

Portfolio: Womangirls 1971-1974

Walking as Womangirl
Elyssa Dimant

Portfolio: Plain Shoes 1971-9175

Conceptual Illustrations
Steven Heller

Illustrations Come Back
Roger Black

Portfolio: Heads of Color 1978-1984

Electronic Atelier
Cynthia Goodman

Portfolio: Computer Heads 1982-1984

Random Access Memories and Digital Publishing
Douglas Dodds

Portfolio: Random Access Memories 1990-1991

The Model Project
Kiša Lala

Portfolio: Model Project 2008-2009

The Divine Image: Space and Time in Context
Philip Koether

Chronicles of Beauty
David Galloway

Portfolio: Chronicles of Beauty 2009-2010

Looking Backward
Gloria Steinem

Portfolio: Collage Drawing Heads 2011-2012

The Human Connection
Milton Glaser

Voices

Contributors

Acknowledgement

Captions and Credits

Contributors

Roger Black
Magazine designer

Elyssa Dimant
Fashion historian

Douglas Dodds
Senior Curator in the Word and Image Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Curator of Barbara Nessim: An Artful Life

David Galloway
Independent curator and author

Cynthia Goodman
Curator and author, former director of
the IBM Gallery for Science and Art

Steven Heller
Design critic and historian

Matthew Israel
Art historian

Philip Koether
Architect

Kiša Lala
Curator and essayist

Christoph Benjamin Schulz
Art Historian and curator

Gloria Steinem
Journalist and political activist

Anne Telford
Founding editor of Communication Arts magazine

Milton Glaser
Graphic designer

Bard Graduate Center publishes award-winning exhibition catalogues, books, and journals focusing on scholarship in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture.