Irv Koons
Irv Koons | |
---|---|
Born | Irvin Louis Koons March 14, 1922 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | September 10, 2017 Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. | (aged 95)
Occupation(s) | Artist, industrial designer, illustrator |
Spouse |
Leah Fay Koons (m. 1949) |
Irvin Louis Koons (March 14, 1922 – September 10, 2017)
Early life
Irvin Louis Koons was born March 14, 1922, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Frank and Rose (Silver) Koons. His father owned a printing shop and, as a teenager, Koons began assisting in the family business by designing items for their clients (throughout his career, he credited his father as the major influence on his design aesthetic). In 1932, his older sister, Eleanor Pearl Koons, drowned in a local swimming pool at age 14.[2] Shortly thereafter, the family moved to Reading, Pennsylvania.
In 1939, after graduating from Reading High School early at the age of 16, Koons went to
Just before his unit was deployed for combat, he was reassigned to a Special Services unit in
After the war, Koons studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau. In 1950, shortly after their marriage, he and his wife Leah, who was also a painter, were invited back to Fontainebleau to teach art and continue their painting. Although he realized early on that his career was in commercial art and design, Koons was an accomplished and prolific painter and sculptor, and he continued to work in a variety of mediums, but chiefly in oil painting, for the rest of his life.[6]
Career
Illustration
In 1946, after his discharge from the army, Irv Koons returned to New York where he enrolled in
Koons also contributed illustrations to a variety of periodicals, such as Fortune, Family Circle, Seventeen, Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Sports Illustrated.[5][7] In his eighties, Koons illustrated two children's books written by his son Jon Koons.
Type design
In 1956, along with his associate Ben Rosen, Koons designed the first cold type
Package design / Irv Koons Associates, Inc.
Although he continued to illustrate David Dodge's books until the mid-1950s, Irv Koons' professional focus shifted from illustration to packaging and industrial design. In 1949, he founded his own consulting design firm, Irv Koons Associates, Inc. (IKA), in New York, for which he served as CEO and Creative Head. IKA was the leading packaging design firm for four decades, with more than two dozen employees at its height.[9] In 1981, the firm was acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi, the world's largest advertising agency at the time. In November 1988, Koons resigned from the Saatchi organization to join the United Nations Development Programme as Senior Advisor to the Administrator, a volunteer appointment.
Before settling into package and product design, Koons provided numerous illustrations for advertisements, then quickly transitioned into creating entire advertising campaigns. IKA's first packaging design client was Consolidated Cigar Corporation in 1953, for whom he provided designs for Yorkshire Cigars, a private label brand for Sears. In 1956, Koons accepted an assignment for Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., manufacturer of Seven Crown whiskey. Shortly thereafter, C.F. Mueller Company, a New Jersey pasta manufacturer, joined the client list. All three of these relationships lasted for decades during which time IKA created packages for multiple brands.[10][11]
In addition to Consolidated Cigar, Seagram, and Mueller, Koons worked on projects for many other companies and organizations designing packaging, advertisements and logos, leaflets, brochures, and booklets. Among his best-known clients were
Non-profit and Jewish organization work
Koons also designed items, including advertising and publications, for various non-profits and Jewish organizations such as
Awards and honors
Koons won numerous awards for marketing, packaging, and advertising. In 1982 he was named the Packaging Person of the Year by the Packaging Designers Council. This was a rare award, having been presented only three times before, and only when the Council thought it warranted. The award presentation and dinner was originally scheduled to take place at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in a room designed to hold about fifty attendees. However, the PDC received such an overwhelming response from designers, friends, and students from around the world who wanted to attend that the event had to be moved at the last minute to a larger venue at the St. Regis New York.[12]
His products won
Teaching and lecturing
Throughout his nearly fifty-year career, Koons worked tirelessly to promote a better understanding of the role of packaging in the successful marketing of commercial products and a greater appreciation for the historical importance of packaging. He lectured and taught extensively and, in 1973, developed a three-day "Fundamentals of Packaging" course for the
Irv Koons Design
After his retirement, Koons established Irv Koons Design, an independent design consulting firm, at his home in Tenafly, New Jersey. He also did freelance design work.
Personal life
Irv Koons was married to Leah Fay on December 25, 1949, and they had three sons, Adam, Jonathan, and Joshua.
Death
At the end of his life, Irv Koons moved into the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, where Leah was also a resident. He died there on September 10, 2017. Leah died on February 18, 2019. They are both buried in Calverton National Cemetery in Calverton, New York.
Books illustrated by Irv Koons
- Burstein, Abraham. Judah Halevi in Granada: A Story of His Boyhood. Bloch Publishing Company, 1941.
- Dodge, David. How Green Was My Father. Simon & Schuster, 1946.
- Dodge, David. How Lost Was My Weekend. Random House, 1948.
- Dodge, David. The Crazy Glasspecker, or, High Life in the Andes. Random House, 1949.
- Dodge, David. 20,000 Leagues Behind the 8 Ball. Random House, 1951.
- Dodge, David. The Poor Man's Guide to Europe. Random House, 1953 (updated and revised annually 1954–1959).
- Dodge, David. Time Out for Turkey. Random House, 1955 (dust jacket design only).
- Koons, Jon. Any Fool Can Do Magic!: A Jester's Guide to Becoming a Great Magician. Ye Olde Cambridge Jester's Academy, 1995; Metamorphic Press, 2021. ISBN 978-1-951221-17-1
- Koons, Jon. Young Arthur & the Magic Sword: Stories for the Young at Heart. BearManor Media, 2015; Metamorphic Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-951221-08-9
References
- ^ "Irvin L. Koons". New Jersey, U.S. Death Index, 1901-2017. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
- ^ "Eleanor Koons". Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1967. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
- ^ Stern, Adele H. (14 January 1961). "He's an Artist in Any Outfit". The Record (Hackensack, N.J.). Newspapers.com. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
- ^ a b "Irv Koons Papers". Hagley Museum & Library. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
- ^ a b c "Papers of Irv Koons". Yeshiva University Museum. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
- ^ a b Personal communication with Jon Koons, March 2021.
- ^ a b "Irving Louis Koons". Cooper Hewitt. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
- ^ Fay, Leah (May–June 1959). "Irv Koons". Graphis. 15 (83): 258.
- ^ .
- ^ a b c Steinberger, Staci (2009). Selling the Silent Salesman: Irv Koons and Mid-Twentieth Century Packaging Design. MA Thesis, University of Delaware.
- ^ a b "Irv Koons Design". Wayback Machine. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 2016-11-12. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
- ^ Koons, Jon (2017). "Eulogy for Irv Koons". JestMaster. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
External links
- A David Dodge Companion, via the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive
- "Irv Koons: The Man and His Art," via YouTube
- Irv Koons Design, via the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive
- Irv Koons Papers, Hagley Museum & Library
- Irv Koons Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
- "Irvin Louis Koons," Marquis Who's Who, via WorldCat
- Irving Louis Koons, Cooper Hewitt
- Papers of Irv Koons, Yeshiva University Museum (Center for Jewish History)