This fall, School of Visual Arts (SVA) will honor design giant Stefan Sagmeister with its 33rd Masters Series Award and Exhibition. A career retrospective that includes elements of Sagmeister’s past exhibitions, published books, design and film work, the exhibition will be on view Thursday, August 29 through Saturday, October 12, 2024, at the SVA Chelsea Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. SVA will also host an artist talk with Sagmeister on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, at 7:00pm at the SVA Theatre.

"It is a true pleasure to receive this award and to see decades of my work exhibited at my very favorite art school in New York City," Sagmeister says. "Bringing together all of the different facets of my career for people to enjoy and interact with at SVA, where I had the privilege of teaching for many years, is especially meaningful. It'll be a whole lot of fun."

Sagmeister was born in Austria and received his MFA from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and as a Fulbright Scholar, a master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York. A prolific artist and graphic designer, Sagmeister’s diverse client list ranges from the Rolling Stones to Levi’s, David Byrne and Talking Heads, Lou Reed, the Jewish Museum in New York City and the Guggenheim Museum in Berlin. Though the core of his work is graphic design in a wide range of forms ranging from book jackets to album covers to brand identities, his design work has extended to furniture, watches and clothing, as well as to the beautification of public and private spaces from Arkansas to Toronto and Vienna.

Beyond design, Sagmeister directed the documentary The Happy Film, and authored several popular books on his personal and professional practices and philosophies, including the recently published Now is Better (Phaidon, 2023). He has been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, the National Design Award for Communications from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Golden Medal of Honor of the Republic of Austria, among many others. His work has been mounted in dozens of museums around the world, and his exhibit “The Happy Show” attracted over half a million visitors during its run at various venues including Los Angeles’ Institute of Contemporary Art and Museum of Contemporary Art. Sagmeister also taught at SVA in the MFA Design program through this year.

“The Masters Series: Stefan Sagmeister” will incorporate multiple “eras” of the artist’s long and storied career, with more than three decades of sketchbooks, many posters including ones commissioned by SVA as part of the College’s Subway Poster series, and design work dating back to the late 1980s. The show will include a miniature theatre where Sagmeister’s film will screen on a loop, interactive installations, and even special take-home posters for visitors to the gallery. Augmented Timeline by Interval.ooo, in collaboration with Stefan Sagmeister. Interval studio is led by Yannick Jacquet & Nicolas Boritch.

In 1988, SVA founder Silas H. Rhodes instituted the Masters Series, an award and exhibition honoring great visual communicators of our time. Although the achievements of many groundbreaking designers, illustrators, art directors and photographers are known to and lauded by their colleagues, their names often go unrecognized by the general public. The Masters Series brings greater exposure to those whose influence has been felt strongly and by many, yet without widespread recognition.

Masters Series laureates are Lynsey Addario, Marshall Arisman, Saul Bass, Michael Bierut, R.O. Blechman, Steve Brodner, Roz Chast, Ivan Chermayeff, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Lou Dorfsman, Heinz Edelmann, Jules Feiffer, Louise Fili, Shigeo Fukuda, Tom Geismar, Milton Glaser, April Greiman, Steven Heller, George Lois, Mary Ellen Mark, Ed McCabe, James McMullan, Duane Michals, Christoph Niemann, Tony Palladino, Paula Scher, Edward Sorel, Deborah Sussman, George Tscherny, Paul Rand and Massimo Vignelli.

The exhibition will be on view Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00am to 6:00pm and Mondays by appointment, except for Labor Day Weekend when the gallery will close at 1:00pm on Friday, August 30, and reopen on Tuesday, September 3. The gallery is fully accessible by wheelchair.

School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for seven decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, a dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprising 7,000 students at its Manhattan campus and more than 42,000 alumni from 128 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world. For information about the College’s 31 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, visit sva.edu.