From Art Nouveau to Pop Day-Glo: Levi Strauss Advertising as Art

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:  Charles Schuler
Associate Deputy Airport Director
Communications & Marketing
San Francisco International Airport 
650-821-5031        
Charles.Schuler@flysfo.com       
SF-12-56      

From Art Nouveau to Pop Day-Glo: Levi Strauss Advertising as Art
New exhibition presents examples of promotional imagery from the company's archives.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Classic American illustration is presented in many forms, but is always recognizable. Bold colors, finely detailed drawings, and a nod to popular culture are the hallmarks of the design aesthetic adopted by fine artists, commercial illustrators, and designers. San Francisco’s own Levi Strauss & Co. took this to heart when it created and patented the first blue jeans in San Francisco in 1873.

From Art Nouveau to Pop Day-Glo: Levi Strauss Advertising As Art features seventeen examples from the company’s archives of the varied catalogue covers, salesman’s flyers, calendars, and in-store advertisements from the 1890s to the 1970s. Enlargements of Levi’s advertising images depict the Art Nouveau influence on covers of early catalogues; the company’s historic association of its product with the cowboy and the West; Levi’s emphasis on the postwar nuclear family in the years following the end of World War II; and images reflecting the vibrant youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Selected images from the exhibition are available to download at: http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/sfo_museum/about/press_images/exh-levi.html

From Art Nouveau to Pop Day-Glo: Levi Strauss Advertising as Art is located in Terminal 3, Boarding Area F from Tuesday, September 11, 2012 through Wednesday, November 28, 2012. The exhibition is located post-security and is only accessible to passengers ticketed for travel through Terminal 3. There is no charge to view the exhibition.

About SFO Museum

SFO Museum was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. The Museum was granted initial accreditation from the American Association of Museums in 1999, reaccredited in 2005, and has the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport. Today, SFO Museum features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, a permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation. For more information, please visit  https://twitter.com/sfomuseum.

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