'Yes, No, and WOW: the Push Pin Studios Revolution'

The Church in Sag Harbor will open the exhibition “Yes, No, and WOW: the Push Pin Studios Revolution,” with a reception on Saturday, October 5, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The show will run October 6 to December 30 and it presents a like-minded group of six graphic artists who came together in the mid-20th century to form a graphic design firm that had a profound and lasting cultural impact.

Three of the six artists have deep ties to Sag Harbor, and this exhibition continues The Church’s series of exhibitions that seek to illuminate the cultural, creative, and artistic history of the community.

Push Pin Studios began as a loose collaboration among four Cooper Union graduates: Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Reynold Ruffins and Ed Sorel whose first radical acts were to create tongue-in-cheek publications to promote their art and design to art directors in advertising and publishing. The Push Pin Almanack was a playful throwback to 19th-century advertising, employing antique type and techniques such as woodcut, cross-hatching, and other antiquated conventions of graphics for commerce that put the whole culture on notice with their unabashed playfulness and boldness.

The Almanack and its eventual successor, the Push Pin Graphic, had an overwhelming reception almost immediately. The studio expanded to include many other artists, including Sag Harbor denizens Paul Davis and James McMullan. Each artist offered new imagery, full of verve, irreverence and inventiveness, liberating illustration and graphic design from the reigning culture of modernism. Push Pin Studios became an international phenomenon, changing the way America and the rest of the world experienced the upheaval of the second half of the 20th century, influencing illustration and design for books and magazines, posters, murals and even films. The courage of invention was the core of their impulse.

This exhibition, curated by April Gornik and Myrna Davis, will include actual materials from the Push Pin archive, including chapbooks, almanacks, posters, books, vinyl record covers, and objects from the six aforementioned artists: Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Milton Glaser, James McMullan, Reynold Ruffins and Ed Sorel, spanning the 1950s into the 21st century. The Church will be hosting talks by surviving members of this group as part of its exhibition-related activities throughout the show’s run.

With humor, humanity, and optimism, Push Pin Studios inspired a revolutionary design environment the impact of which can still be seen and felt today. As Milton Glaser said, “There are three responses to a piece of design — yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.”

The Church is at 48 Madison Street in Sag Harbor. For more information, visit thechurchsagharbor.org.