April 12, 2011

Dr. Jeremy Aynsley, noted scholar and design historian, will spend several days as a guest of the Media Arts Department as a Rankin Scholar in Residence. Aynsley will deliver lectures, conduct workshops and curate an exhibition of Polish Poster's from the college's Fox and Lewalski Polish Poster collection. Aynsley, a faculty member of the Royal College of Art in London England, will give two public lectures: Graphic Design in California, 1930 - 65: Developing a Language of Vision, Tuesday, April 12th at 7 PM in the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery, 3rd Floor, Main Building (32nd & Market Sts), and New Knowledge: Recent Research in Art and Design, Wednesday, April 13th at 7 PM in Stein Auditorium, 111 Nesbitt Hall (3215 Market St.).  The lectures are free and open to the public.

The Graphic Design in California, 1930 - 65: Developing a Language of Vision lecture will focus on work created to market California as a tourism destination and a great place to live. Aynsley's work on this topic is in advance of an upcoming exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In the lecture, New Knowledge: Recent Research in Art and Design, Aynsley will discuss what it means to conduct design-based and interdisciplinary research. He will discuss the tradition of practice-based research in the UK using examples that address how research functions in design-based fields.

Aynsley will also curate an exhibition from the Fox and Lewalski collections of Polish Posters housed in our Media Arts department. The exhibition will feature approximately 50 posters documenting the subjects of tourism, film, theatre, national history, political activism and other themes of the Polish Poster movement. Westphal is home to nearly 1,500 remarkable Polish posters created between the 1930's and 1990's that represent internationally known artists whose work brought Poland to the forefront of modern poster design in the second half of the 20th century.  Aynsley will conduct tours of the exhibition, which will be mounted on the second floor of Nesbitt Hall (3215 Market St.).  To sign up for a tour, please contact Jenna Osborne at jao42@drexel.edu. The lectures and tours are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit www.drexel.edu/westphal or call 215-895-1029.