Ervine Metzl
{{Infobox artist
| name = Ervine Metzl
| image = Ervine Metzl, U.S. Passport Application Photo, 1925.jpg
| caption = Ervine Metzl, age 25.
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1899|05|28}}
| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1963|11|22|1899|05|28}}
| death_place = New York City, New York
| nationality =
| known_for = Poster art, Illustration
| training = Art Institute of Chicago
| movement =
| notable_works =
| patrons =
| awards = Benjamin Franklin Award
}}
Ervine Metzl (1899–1963) was an American graphic artist and illustrator best known for his posters and postage stamp designs.
Biography
Ervine Metzl was born in Chicago in 1899 to Ignatz and Bertha (Kohn) Metzl, Jewish immigrants from Bohemia.
As a young man, he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and showed an interest in poster design. In July 1917, in the midst of the First World War his Red Cross poster earned an honorable mention at the Art Institute's Exhibition of Posters for National Service.{{cite book|title=Exhibition of Posters for National Service (catalog)|year=1917|publisher=The Art Institute of Chicago|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/pubs/1917/AIC1917Posters_comb.pdf|accessdate=2010-05-24}}
He created several posters for a series commissioned by the Chicago Transit Authority in the early 1920s.{{cite web|url=http://www.chicago-l.org/ads/1920sPosters/index.html|title=1920s Transit Posters|accessdate=2010-05-22}} Metzl's posters, The Evanston Lighthouse by the Elevated Lines and The Field Museum by the Elevated Lines (featuring a toucan) are still reproduced today. A 2004 exhibit in Chicago featured several of Metzl's transit posters, and the Chicago Tribune art critic commented, "The boldest pieces, because they are the simplest in form and most lively in color, are by Ervine Metzl, who apparently began the series in 1921."{{cite news|work=Chicago Tribune|author=Artner AG|date=October 15, 2004|access-date=2010-05-24|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2004/10/15/immendorff-retrospective-is-erratic/ | title=Immendorff retrospective is erratic}}
The cover of Fortune magazine featured Metzl's depictions of an astronomical observatory and a comet (July 1932){{cite web|url=http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/xb/43.jpg|accessdate=2010-05-22|work=Fortune magazine|title=Fortune magazine cover|date=July 1932}} and a window washer (November 1932).{{cite web|url=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/113/290548437_1cd5ea9354.jpg|work=Fortune magazine|title=Fortune magazine cover|accessdate=2010-05-22|date=November 1932}}
Working in Manhattan, Metzl influenced the lives and careers of other artists, as well. In the 1930s, graphic designer Paul Rand's career was helped along by Metzl, who helped Rand find a position designing advertisements for a Manhattan ad agency.{{cite news|work=Print|url=http://www.paul-rand.com/index.php/site/books_print1997/|accessdate=2010-05-24|title=Thoughts on Rand|author=Heller S|date=May–June 1997|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100703084733/http://www.paul-rand.com/index.php/site/books_print1997/|archive-date=2010-07-03|url-status=dead}} Metzl was also a friend of Ludwig Bemelmans,{{cite book|author=Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeleine Bemelmans|title=Tell Them It Was Wonderful: Selected Writings|publisher=Viking|year=1985|accessdate=2010-05-24|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OT5aAAAAMAAJ&q=metzl+inauthor:bemelmans|page=159|isbn=9780670803910}} author of the popular Madeline books. Metzl is variously described as Bemelmans' "agent"{{cite book|title=With All Its Faults: A Candid Account of Forty Years in Advertising|author=Fairfax M. Cone|publisher=Little, Brown|year=1969|url=https://www.google.com/#num=20&hl=en&q=%22irvin%20metzl%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp&fp=6f78d0ffc1b1e58c|accessdate=2010-05-24}} and as his "ghost artist".{{cite book|title=Sixth book of junior authors & illustrators|editor=Sally Holmes Holtze|year=1989|publisher=H. W. Wilson|page=[https://archive.org/details/sixthbookofjunio00holt/page/25 25]|author=Ron Barrett|isbn=9780824207779|url=https://archive.org/details/sixthbookofjunio00holt|url-access=registration|quote=metzl bemelmans ghost artist.|accessdate=2010-05-24}} It was in Metzl's studio that Bemelmans is said to have met his future wife, Madeleine "Mimi" Freund, a model.{{cite book|author=Laura Lee|title=The Name's Familiar II|publisher=Pelican Publishing Co.|year=2001|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dwf1YYxQmRsC&q=metzl+bemelmans&pg=PA125|accessdate=2010-05-22|pages=25|isbn=9781455609178}} As president of the Society of Illustrators from 1956–1957,{{cite web|url=http://www.societyillustrators.org/About-the-Society/Board.aspx|title=About the Society|accessdate=2010-05-24}} Metzl took a young Ron Barrett under his wing. Illustrator Gyo Fujikawa was also a friend of Metzl's.{{cite book|title=Something About the Author Vol. 16|editor=Joyce Nakamura|author=Gyo Fujikawa|year=1993|publisher=Gale|isbn=9780810344655|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cKFvpMxSxecC&q=metzl|accessdate=2010-05-24}}
File:Geophysical Year 3c 1958 issue U.S. stamp.jpg
From 1957-1960, Metzl designed ten postage stamps for the United States Postal Service. One of his best known stamp designs was a commemorative stamp for the first International Geophysical Year in 1957-1958, in which he "endeavored to picture a man’s wonder at the unknown together with his determination to understand it and his need for spiritual inspiration to further his knowledge" by pairing the outstretched arms from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam with a depiction of a solar flare.{{cite web|url=http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/igystamp.html|title=The US IGY Stamp|accessdate=2010-05-22|archive-date=2012-02-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125732/http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/igystamp.html|url-status=dead}} He also designed commemoratives for the first World Refugee Year,{{cite web|url=http://arago.si.edu/category_2032855.html|title=Arago: World Refugee Year Issue|accessdate=2016-01-31}}{{cite web|url=http://www.1847usa.com/identify/1950s/1960.htm |title=Postage Stamps of the United States First Issued in 1960 |accessdate=2010-05-22 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102101710/http://1847usa.com/identify/1950s/1960.htm |archivedate=January 2, 2010 }} the Lincoln Sesquicentennial, and the 1960 Winter Olympics.
In addition to his stamp design work, Metzl served on the U.S. Postal Service Citizens' Advisory Committee. In recognition of his contributions, he was one of the inaugural recipients of the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1960.{{cite web|url=http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/_pdf/BenjaminFranklinAward1.pdf|title=Benjamin Franklin Award|accessdate=2010-05-22}}
He wrote The Poster: Its History and Its Art,{{cite book|title=The Poster: Its History and Its Art|year=1963|oclc=1296301|url=http://www.worldcat.org/title/poster-its-history-and-its-art/oclc/1296301/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true}} published by Watson-Guptill Publications shortly before his death.
He also illustrated the Borzoi Chapbook No. 2, Rainbow, poem by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Knopf, New York, 1932).
Metzl died in New York City on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.{{cite news|title=Ervine Metzl, 64, a stamp designer (obituary)|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/11/24/archives/ervine-metzl-64-a-stamp-designer-artist-who-headed-society-of.html|date=November 24, 1963|accessdate=2010-05-22}}
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- [http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2006/06/certain-kind-of-immortality.html "A Certain Kind of Immortality" - Post about Ervine Metzl's art by David Apatoff, June 17, 2006]
{{Authority control}}
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