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Mel Byars

Mel Byars (born in Columbia, South Carolina), is an American design historian.

Byars studied journalism in the 1950s at the University of South Carolina.[1][2] He subsequently settled in New York City[3] and eventually became active as an art director or creative director for a number of publishers, such as Prentice-Hall and McGraw-Hill, and for advertising agencies, including Leber Katz Partners (subsumed into Foote, Cone & Belding, the world's second oldest advertising agency, founded 1873). In the early 1980s, he studied anthropology under Stanley Diamond (1921–1991) in the master's-degree program of The New School for Social Research. And, previously there, he was enrolled in the School of Media Studies.

A decade later, he turned to the history of applied art/industrial design and served as the archivist of the Thérèse Bonney Photography Collection (images of 1925-35 French decorative arts and other subjects) in New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and has been a major donor of 20th-century objects to the museum's permanent collection.[4] He has made other donations to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (Uměleckoprůmyslová museum v Praze),[2] Israel Museum,[5] Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and Columbia Museum of Art.[2]

Byars has taught at Pratt Institute and Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and Holon Institute of Technology in Israel[6] and at others as well as lectured widely[7] while remaining active in the advertising sector. From 2017 to 2019, he wrote a column for Elephant art and culture magazine.[8][9]

Awards/works

Byars's most significant work is the second edition (2004) of The Design Encyclopedia, which won the Besterman/McColvin Gold Medal for the best reference book of 2004 from the British Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.[10][11] When active in graphic design earlier in his career, he won a number of awards, including from the Art Directors Club of New York and had works published in various books such as 100 Years of Dance Posters[12] and Dance Posters.[13]

In addition to The Design Encyclopedia, other literary works include more than a dozen books, essays for various design-exhibition catalogs, book introductions and articles for I.D., Beaux Arts, Clear, Echoes, Graphis,[14] form, and other periodicals. A number of the books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Hebrew.[15]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ List of University of South Carolina people
  2. ^ a b c "'Psychedelic Design' exhibit at CMA explores rock poster revolution of '60s". 'Psychedelic Design' exhibit at CMA explores rock poster revolution of '60s - The Daily Gamecock at University of South Carolina. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  3. ^ "Burnishing the Furnishings". Haaretz.
  4. ^ "Mel Byars | People | Collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum".
  5. ^ "Collections | the Israel Museum, Jerusalem".
  6. ^ "创造力在边缘：传统工艺、地方资源与可持续设计之路".
  7. ^ "ARrango Design Foundation, INC.. Miami, FL". bisprofiles.com. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  8. ^ "Exhausted". June 5, 2017.
  9. ^ "Read, Tear and Wipe". August 13, 2017.
  10. ^ "Archived copy". www.cilip.org.uk. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. ^ Kathryn Beecroft, compiler. CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Yearbook 2004-2005, London, 2005.
  12. ^ Walter Terry and Jack Rennert, 100 Years of Dance Posters, New York: Darien House, 1975
  13. ^ Dance Posters New York: Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1979.
  14. ^ "Graphis Issue 318". graphis.com.
  15. ^ "Pentagon Patches book: secret, scary military guys with sick senses of humor". Core77. Retrieved September 18, 2023.

External links