The military committee San Diego does its best to help veterans transition back to the civilian world and that was the case in the 1950s and 60s after World War II when the defense industry became a kind of patron of the arts. In exhibit at the central downtown library showed fascinating history of how graphic design as artists are employed for the burgeoning aerospace industry. Integrated what would otherwise have been drab maple reports. Here to talk to us about the exhibit, we have Dave Hampton was the guest curator of print culture at the San Diego central library. Thanks for being with us. And Karl was to the arts and culture exhibition manager at the San Diego Public Library. Happy to be here. Why was the defense of the two looking for conceptual artist? I don't think the defense industry was in particular looking for conceptual artist. Some folks in positions to hire talented artists about the Navy electronics laboratory and economics gave some of the best talent in San Diego. These people had a chance to fill other positions with great artists. There's a long history especially the Navy of people like Evergreen and Dan Dickey and reread working in their graphic design area. These are all artists of people are aware of. We have seen them in exhibitions of arts. In this exhibit, their art is different. It's much more utilitarian. Absolute. Some of the things we're showing might involve the cover of their financial report. The artist has made really creative use of images of coins. Also, we have an example of hearing tests for pressures for hearing tests that the Navy put on for free. It was designed by Jim Sandel. The idea behind these tests was the Navy to collect data on people's hearing which was useful for their research and development. We have pressure for justice hearing test offered at the Dallmar for which is also very creative. It might seem strange that companies like that would be concerned about art. It is a people remember their building and Kearny Mesa which was very adamant time. The research and evolvement of that product which is one of the first if not the first intercontinental ballistic missile. They built this modernist site in Kearny Mesa which is very pronounced with amazing circular spiral stairways, suspended in the lobby, great glass walls and water features. All of which had marked modernist look. That also in their graphic design made their identity, their brand if you would look like it was cutting edge. On the forefront. At the top of their game, this was the image they want to put out and did Synercid but are very effective at that. Was a liberty interest in showing this? Library has a mission to inspire lifelong learning with connections to knowledge of each other. I think the show really amplifies that. It's successfully allows for a lots of connections. There's lots of entry points. It would interest people that have interest in design, permitting, design. There's lots of different ways someone can get hooked on the show and learn to all these connections. There's a great threat to the goes through it all and really talks about and demonstrates the connections the artistic community has. You have to realize, a lot of what we exhibit is ephemera. Things that were not meant to last a long time. They're meant to be enjoyed for a short time. They document activity. There's a lot of really starkly rich content in items on display but there's also aesthetically very pleasing to you are interested in typography, design or a variety of printing processes that are in the show as well. Is little bit of a Clemson to San Diego history also. Absolutely. Tattling. This -- these objects capture just as I was saying, they capture this time period. Their evidence of interesting art activity that often San Diego is a place it hasn't done the best job in paying attention and attending to our arts community and especially our sister here. This really shines a light on that committee. And relationships between the community colleges, the defense industry, artists galleries. Shows their attending and creating. And their social lives. You really get a sense of all these different types of activities going on at this time. I want to ask you thought about the difference her. Do they see it as art or just a paycheck? It's completed. There were really top-notch designers who were really marvelous designers. See how things that might have wound up being fairly mundane or tedious like workplace safety posters. In the hands of a designer like Stan Hodge, who was one of the main designers at Convair astronautics, he took that material and was very creative with his words, brief messages and with the catch images. That might make you smile or laugh at paying attention to these kind of messages like please set boxes upright or don't cut your fingers on the machinery. Things like that. Who would've thought you could make these very down-to-earth messages artistic and found. Thank you both for coming in and talking to us about an unusual exhibit at the San Diego downtown central library for the car was in season fish measure. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us.
While San Diego defense contractor General Dynamics was building Atlas rockets in the late 1950s, the region’s developing art community became an unlikely beneficiary.
Now-prominent artists, including John Baldessari, relied on General Dynamics and the Navy Electronics Laboratory for work as graphic designers that could support their more personal projects. Some of their modernist graphic designs are part of “Print Culture,” a free exhibit at the San Diego Central Library running through Feb. 26. Included are flight test guidelines, financial reports, logos and a cover sheet for secret documents.
Curator Dave Hampton says General Dynamics division Convair sought out trained artists to help project a cutting-edge image and became a spawning ground for San Diego designers.
“That’s what good modern design symbolizes,” Hampton said. “When they built their new building in Kearny Mesa, it was a modernist building: floor to ceiling glass expanses, pools of water, spiral staircases. Graphic design, just like architecture, is a specific conscious choice to say ‘Our brand is totally advanced and at the forefront of our field.’”
But while the artists saw the work as a means to sustain their art, they didn’t necessarily hold the contractors in high regard.
“Oh, God, that was the worst job I ever had,” Baldessari said in an oral history interview with the Archives of American Art. “I mean, the day was so long, and I was just drawing these stupid drawings of Atlas missiles.”
The exhibit also includes announcements for art shows and poetry readings, greeting cards and other ephemera documenting the San Diego art world in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
“It tells a story of the activities they were supporting,” Kara West, the library’s arts and culture exhibition manager, said. “Through these objects we see the relationships.”
