George Giusti

Lion in Bowler Hat Graphic in Yellow, Red Blue, Holiday Magazine Mid-Century

1958

George Giusti was born in 1908 in Milan, Italy, of a Swiss father and an Italian mother. He studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and did graphic design there before deciding to move to Zürich, Switzerland, where he opened a design studio, which he operated for seven years. While on a visit to the United States in 1938, Giusti was induced to stay by the several excellent commissions that were offered to him, including the opportunity to collaborate with Herbert Matter on the design of the Swiss pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Giusti was well known in Europe and America for his architecture and sculpture, as well as his graphics. He studied architecture in Milan and worked at it from time to time, producing stunning examples of contemporary design. For more than four decades in America, and before that in Italy and Switzerland, George Giusti’s graphic designs have graced the covers of Time, Fortune, Holiday and other major magazines, as well as most of the publications of the United States Information Agency, and Giusti had a 12-year design association with Geigy Pharmaceuticals. He has done advertising and graphic designs, illustrations, trademarks, client and employee publications, package designs for major corporations and drawings. He has succeeded to the extent that his designs are consistently ahead of their time. It was Giusti’s expressed intention to build a bridge between fine art and art for commercial use. He disdains the terms “fine” and “commercial” as defining a distinction that should not exist. Art is art, he believes, whatever its purported use.

George Giusti’s work has been exhibited in America’s large cities and most of the capitals of the world. His portfolio has been published in Graphis, Switzerland, Idea, Japan, Gebrauchsgraphik, Germany, Pagina Art, Italy and Communication Art, The United States. Over the years, Giusti has garnered more than 10 gold and silver medals and 80 other awards and citations. He was a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Alliance Graphique Internationale, International Center for Graphic Art (Typographic Art) and the Art Directors Club, which selected him as Art Director of the Year for 1958.

(Biography provided by Robert Azensky Fine Art)