AN ARCHITECTONIC CLARITY

In 1939 appeared an article in the German magazine Gebrauschsgraphik:  “Lester Beall is the typical representative of those definitely intellectual artists whose creative work is based less upon spontaneity than upon reflection.  His work displays an almost mathematical accuracy and architectonic clarity:  one feels in looking at it that it has been executed  with careful consideration and with a feeling of responsibility.  Further, it reveals a perfect command of the typographical medium and an unerring feeling for the  proper arrangement of surfaces.  It also betrays the obvious desire to express with the simplest possible means easily comprehended impressions of striking forcefulness.”

Lester was unorthodox in the choice of his media.  He used old woodcuts, lithos, drawings and pieces of paintings, he operated with photomontage, photogram, photographic and typographic effects.

Recognition abroad became evident in 1935 with an article in a German magazine:  “Fifteen drawings prepared for the Chicago Tribune Travel Bureau by Lester Beall of Chicago are all very original and daring, and are absolutely not, as we have understood to be the manner in which American art is done.”  Later the same year the Chicago Tribune received a letter from Germany:  “The excellent Swiss typographical journal, Typoghiche Monatsblaetter, is preparing a special issue on the United States and has asked me to write a review of modern American advertising typography.  As I consider your pamphlet and advertising folder such as ‘Consider Chicago’ and others designed by Lester Beall as the finest and most progressive American advertising designs, I should be most obliged to you for letting me have a selection of  what you consider most representative.”