Introduction
Gordon Coster. Advertisement for N. W. Ayer, ca. 1934. olvwork490067
Nathan Lazarnick. Advertisement for Sanka Coffee, ca. 1934. olvwork490160
On September 18, 1934, a stunning exhibition sponsored by the National Alliance of Art and Industry (NAAI) and the Photographic Illustrators, Inc. opened in the gallery of New York City's 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The show featured 250 works by the top artistic and commercial photographers of the day, with a particular focus on advertising and industrial images. In 1935, approximately 125 prints from the NAAI exhibition came to Harvard Business School, which was actively collecting photographs for exhibition and classroom use. "The High Art of Photographic Advertising" revisits the 1934 exhibition—a collection that seventy-five years later survives as a telling chapter in evolving perceptions about photography's artistic, commercial, and cultural significance.
John Paul Pennebaker. For Marshall Field, ca. 1934. olvwork490176