Seymour Chwast, Groucho Marx, 1989

Seymour Chwast

Groucho Marx, 1989

Silkscreen on Rives BFK

44 × 30 inches

Hand-signed and numbered 36/200 by artist on the front

This dazzling oversized silkscreen with deckled edges is a close-up portrait of Julius Henry Marx (aka "Groucho") with a cigar between his teeth and donning a blue and silver striped suit. Curling up like smoke from the tip of his cigar is white letters spelling out "Groucho", the nickname by which the legendary actor was most famously known. This print is signed and numbered in pencil by the artist.

About Seymour Chwast:

Seymour Chwast has profoundly affected American graphic design and illustration, both through his stewardship of the seminal Push Pin Studios (which he founded in 1954 with Milton Glaser and Ed Sorel) and his consistent contributions in editorial illustration for periodicals such as The New York Times, Forbes, and Frankfurter Allgemeine. He is the author of more than thirty children's books, and his illustrations can be found on countless posters, packaging, album and book covers, advertisements, and corporate and environmental graphics. When it first gained recognition, Push Pin represented a radical departure from the modernist orthodoxy prevalent in the New York design world, and embraced a flowing and vibrant visual style that would make its mark on the Pop movement of the 1960s; this was recognized in The Push Pin Style, the unprecedented exhibition of American design at the Louvre’s Musée des Arts Decoratifs in 1970. In 1985, the studio’s name was changed to The Pushpin Group, of which Chwast is the director. He is a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame and a recipient of the AIGA medal. The Seymour Chwast Collection contains 60 original artworks, 79 posters, 33 periodicals (including the Push Pin Graphic and The Nose), many print items, and several hundred slides.