Material relates to Sutnar's career including exhibitions, designs for corporate clients, designs for books on packaging design and catalog information. Little office correspondence and personal information is provided.The major part of the collection consists of Sutnar's designs, including logos, letterheads, catalogs, and advertising campaigns for a large number of clients, notably Addo-X, Carr's Department Stores, JC Penney, RCA, and Vera, as well as product and catalog design for Sweet's Catalog Service. Also included are drafts of books, sketches, over 5,000 photographs, photoprints, and photonegatives. Other materials include clippings, page layouts, brochures and booklets about package design and magazine layouts.
Arrangement note:
Arranged by client account and by material size. A picture reference file is boxed separately.
Biographical/Historical note:
Graphic, display, and industrial designer. Born Pilsen, Austro- Hungary (now Plzen, Czech Republic), 9 November 1897. Sutnar immigrated to the United States in 1939. He was inspired by the Bauhaus and was an advocate for a constructivist and functional approach in graphic design stressing simplicity, order, and precision. He was the art editor of the Prague publishing house, "Druzstevni Prace." Sitmar was head designer for the Czech pavilion at 1939 New York World's Fair.
He served as art director for Sweet's Catalog Service from 1941 to 1960. Due to his belief that designers need to be capable of working in many fields of design, Sutnar established his own "full-service" firm in New York City in 1951. He developed a new typography called "information graphics". He was author of "Design for Point of Sale", 1952, "Package Design: The Force of Selling", 1953, and "Visual Design in Action", 1961. Sutnar also created corporate image products for McGraw-Hill and Printex. Died 1976.
Location of Other Archival Materials Note:
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Drawings and Prints Department.Seven posters, one magazine cover, two designs for glassware, and some duplicates of the archival material.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Applied Arts Department. One ceramic coffee service, one glass tea service.
Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C.Business and personal correspondence, biographical data, sketches, photographs, clippings, and other print miscellany, circa 1927-1976.
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, N.Y.Approximately 215 items dating from 1940 to 1970 include printed samples of Sutnar's designs for periodical covers, advertisements, catalogs, books, displays, and posters.
Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, Special Collections, Los Angeles, C.A.Papers relating to Sutnar's designs and exhibitions, 1928-1969.
Provenance:
The Sutnar Papers were donated to Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in 1977 by Radoslav L. Sutnar and Citislav Sutnar.
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use onsite by appointment. Permission of staff required to photograph material.
