Masters Series: Saul Bass

Saul Bass to receive MASTERS SERIES HONORS from the School of Visual Arts Retrospective Exhibition for Creator of Film Sequences and Designer set for March 11 to April 5, 1996

SAUL BASS, Filmmaker, Film Title and Credit Sequence Designer, Graphic Designer and Found of Bass / Yager & Associates, will be honored by the School of Visual Arts in a Masters Series Exhibition at the College's Visual Arts Museum from March 11 to April 5, 1996.

Since the 1950s, Saul Bass has been responsible for creating the most memorable film title and credit sequences in Hollywood. Throughout his extensive career, Bass has been able to work for the industry's most creative directors including Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, and Billy Wilder, whom Bass describes as "my masters; I learned from them as I worked." His film titles establish a mood and immediately attract audience attention. Among Bass' film titles (over 40 to date) are The Man with Golden Arm, Vertigo, The Seven Year Itch, West Side Story, Spartacus, and The Anatomy of a Murder. In addition to creating the titles for the movies, Bass became involved in what he called "miniature film-making" and directed sequences within the films themselves... notably the shower sequence in Hitchcock's Psycho.

During the 60's and 70's Bass worked as a graphic designer and was responsible for creating iconic trademarks and logos for such clients as AT&T, Minolta, United Airlines, and the Girl Scouts. In recent years Bass, in collaboration with his wife Elaine, has seen a resurgence of interest from today's top filmmakers in his unique film credit style. Together they have created opening sequences for Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and the current Casino, Penny Marshall's Big, and Danny DeVito's War of the Roses.

According to Sight and Sound Magazine, "Bass" abstract and minimalist style signaled modernity...His corporate and film images were - and still are - distinguished by his ability to alight upon the essence of a topic and express it in a minimalist way that nonetheless has maximum impact.

Exhibition

The Masters Series: Saul Bass