The Picture Book Book: Seymour Chwast & Steven Heller in Conversation

Join Poster House for a conversation with legendary designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast and design historian Steven Heller in celebration of Chwast’s latest publication, The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast. Moderated by Poster House Executive Director & Curator Angelina Lippert, this discussion will explore Chwast’s decades-long creative career and the role children’s books play in championing experimental illustration, typography, and graphic design. The conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing in Café des Affiches. Copies of The Picture Book Book will be available for purchase in the Poster House Shop. Seymour Chwast is a designer, illustrator, and author whose work has shaped contemporary graphic design for more than seven decades. As a founding partner of Push Pin Studios, he helped redefine postwar American visual culture through an eclectic approach that drew on vernacular imagery, historical references, and expressive typography. Chwast has written and illustrated more than 40 children’s books and created an extensive body of posters, publications, and illustrations that are represented in the collections of major museums worldwide. In 2023, he received the Design Visionary Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. His latest publication, The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast, traces his enduring engagement with children’s literature as a vehicle for experimentation, storytelling, and graphic invention. Steven Heller is the co-founder and co-chair emeritus of MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts and editor-at-large at printmag.com, where he writes The Daily Heller. He is a former contributing columnist to the New York Times Book Review, where he was also the senior art director. Heller is the author and/or editor of more than 200 books on graphic design, illustration, and political art, including Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State; Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century; and Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York. Accessibility Note: Masks are available free of charge at the museum. Assistive listening devices and stools are available. ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is also available upon request. Please contact [email protected] or (914) 295-2387 to request interpretation services and to address any other accessibility needs. For other event-related questions, please contact [email protected].