Pevsner on Graphic Design: Transnationality and the Historiography of Design

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the impact of art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner's transnational background—as a German-born Russian Jew who was exiled in Britain—on his interest in and appreciation of graphic design in England. It argues that the uneasy fascistic-nationalistic atmosphere of German society under the reign of terror by the Nazis during the early 1930s galvanized Pevsner, a ‘transnational’ historian, into believing that it is the designer's social responsibility to pursue functional design for the good of society. In other words, Pevsner believed that design could be instrumental both in developing artistic faculties within the individual and in imparting instructive meaning through the work to a general populace, whose aesthetic sense and political awareness may have been limited. As for the role of the art historian, Pevsner was thoroughly convinced that art historians, through their use of historical knowledge, could and should make accessible to both designers and lay people the knowledge...