Dan Friedman (1945– July 6, 1995) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

graphic Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...

and

furniture design Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

er. He was a major contributor to the

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

and new wave

typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...

movements.

Early life and education

In 1945, Dan Friedman was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. He graduated from the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. After that, he studied at the

Ulm School of Design The Ulm School of Design (german: Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm) was a college of design based in Ulm, Germany. It was founded in 1953 by Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill, the latter being first rector of the school and a former stu ...

. There, he studied

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

. He also studied at

Schule für Gestaltung Basel The Schule für Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design), located at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in Basel Switzerland, and its students have influenced the international graphic design community since it opened in 1968. Its tradition is shaped ...

. There, he studied under

Wolfgang Weingart Wolfgang Weingart (6 February 1941 – 12 July 2021) was an internationally known graphic designer and typographer. His work was categorized as Swiss typography and he was credited as "the father" of New Wave or Swiss Punk typography. Childho ...

and

Armin Hofmann Armin Hofmann ( HonRDI) (29 June 1920 – 18 December 2020) was a Swiss graphic designer. He began his career in 1947 as a teacher at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel School of Art and Crafts at the age of twenty-six. Hofmann followed Emil Ru ...

. In 1969 he moved back to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Career

Upon returning to America, Friedman was senior designer at

Anspach Grossman Portugal Anspach may refer to: * The Anspach family * Anspach (surname) * Neu-Anspach, Hesse, Germany * The former name of Ansbach Ansbach (; ; East Franconian: ''Anschba'') is a city in the German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the administ ...

, from 1975 to 1977. For three years, from 1970–73, he taught at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. From 1972-1975, he was the chairman of the board for the design department at

State University of New York at Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. It was fo ...

. Friedman designed posters, letterheads, logos, and more, while working for

Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle aroun ...

, from 1979 until 1984. Clients included

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

and Williwear. He used found objects to create

Day-Glo The Day-Glo Color Corp. (also styled as DayGlo) is a privately held American paint and pigments manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1946 by brothers Joseph and Robert Switzer and is currently owned by RPM International. It ...

furniture. In 1982 he designed a book for his friend,

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

. He did work for the

Neotu Gallery Néotù was a contemporary furniture gallery founded in 1984 in Paris. Gérard Dalmon (b. 1945), a computer consultant at Cap Gemini, and Pierre Staudenmeyer (1952—2007), a marketing consultant, established the Galerie Néotù in 1984 in Paris, ...

. Starting in 1994 he was the Frank Stanton Professor of Graphic Design at the

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

Death and legacy

He died of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

in 1995 at

St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center Mount Sinai Morningside, formerly known as Mount Sinai St. Luke's, is a teaching hospital located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the M ...

, New York City. His work is held in the collection of the

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile (New York City), Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the ...

and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

.MoMA , The Collection , Dan Friedman. Die Normannen Kommen. 1968
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Bibliography

*with Jeffrey Dietch, Steven Holt and Alessandro Mendini. ''Dan Friedman: Radical Modernism.'' New Haven: Yale University Press (1994). . *with Jeffrey Dietch. ''Post Human.'' Pully/Lausanne: FAE Musée d'Art Contemporain (1992).

References

External links

Interview with Dan Friedman
1994, ''Eye'' 14 {{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Dan 1945 births 1995 deaths American art writers 20th-century American educators American furniture designers American graphic designers American typographers and type designers Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts alumni Cooper Union faculty Artists from Cleveland People from Manhattan State University of New York faculty Yale University faculty AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) 20th-century American writers AIGA medalists