Milton Glaser Original posters · 1929–2020
Concert halls, a whole city and an Italian aperitivo. One idea per poster, and the idea always wins.
p. 00 · The ink room
Six inks and an off-white page.
Glaser’s posters run on flat, loud colour, with a single idea doing the work. This issue is printed the same way. Pick an ink and every spread reprints itself in it. Choose “As printed” to put each spread back in its own colour.
Our colours, not his: the swatches recolour this page, never the posters.
Push Pin Studios · New York
The letters came first.
Glaser co-founded Push Pin Studios in 1954, with Seymour Chwast and others. By the late 1960s he was drawing concerts, records and magazines, and turning each one into a single clear idea.
Fig. 1.1 Simon & Garfunkel, 1967 Philharmonic Hall, Sunday 22 January. The printed MILTON GLASER lozenge stands left of the pedestal. Sold · Printed Originals Archive · View the record → 
Fig. 1.2 Aretha, 1968 A fold-out for Eye magazine, November 1968. The fold lines are part of its story. Available · from £960.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 1.3 Dick Gregory on Poppy, 1969 For Poppy Records. One face, two halves. Available · from £760.00 · View this poster →
Gary Keys promoted concerts at Philharmonic Hall, in Lincoln Center, and Glaser drew the posters. For Simon & Garfunkel, on Sunday 22 January 1967, he started with an alphabet. His Baby Fat letters grew into the two figures on their pedestals. Read the poster and you have read the bill.
For Stevie Wonder he put the name in the lenses of the sunglasses. That one gets a page of its own: turn to p. 05.
Aretha was a fold-out in Eye magazine in November 1968, and Glaser named Matisse as a source. The colour sits in flat, cut-out shapes.
Dick Gregory, for Poppy Records in 1969, is split down the middle: light on one side, dark on the other. The album was called The Light Side: The Dark Side. Sometimes the idea is the title, drawn.
He taught as well. From 1960 he was at the School of Visual Arts in New York, which now keeps his archive.
The name is the picture.
The Glaser IssuePush Pin Studiosp. 01
New York State · 1977–2008
Selling New York back to itself.
In 1977 Glaser drew the I Love New York logo for the state’s tourism campaign. He sketched it in a taxi and did the job for nothing. The sketch is now at MoMA.
A logo was only the start. Glaser also drew regional festival posters for the campaign, each one a small holiday. For the 1984 Fall Festival in the Finger Lakes, Mark Twain sits in a library chair among the grapes. Glaser kept the original art himself; it was sold with his own collection in July 2020.
For the Summer Festival, an Edwardian lady waves at Niagara. Our copy prints 1984 dates. The SVA archive dates a Niagara Frontier design to 1981, so this may be a later printing of an earlier picture. We are checking.
Neither poster carries his name: no lozenge, no script, no credit line. We call them unsigned originals. His design, printed in his lifetime, just not signed.
Fig. 2.1 Unsigned original Fall Festival, 1984 The Finger Lakes, 1 September to 31 October. Mark Twain in his library. Available · from £290.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 2.2 Unsigned original Summer Festival, 1984 Niagara Frontier and Chautauqua-Allegheny, 9 June to 21 September. Available · from £200.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 2.3 US Open, 2008 25 August to 7 September. The credit line at the foot reads DESIGNED BY MILTON GLASER. Available · from £270.00 · View this poster →
His design, his lifetime, no name on it.
Twenty-four years after the Fall Festival he was still drawing for the city. The 2008 US Open poster says so, in plain capitals, at the foot.
Show the 2 unsigned originals in the archive ↓The Glaser IssueNew Yorkp. 02
Italy · 1968–1996
A sun on a fingertip.
Glaser’s Olivetti work began in 1968, with the red Valentine typewriter. Italian clients kept him busy for nearly thirty years.
For the Lexikon 83 DL typewriter, in 1977, a finger balances a sun above a Renaissance landscape. The museum record links it to Raphael and Leonardo. Sixteen years later, for the Quaderno, he set a giant Q in a tiled room; A.G. Nidasio printed it in 1993.
Rimini, in 1995, is nearly all sea and sky, and the name dips into the water. Look lower right for a white script signature. It is printed, so every copy has it.
In 1996 Vespa turned fifty, and Glaser drew the poster. In 1992 Campari sponsored his exhibition with Piero della Francesca, and he made a pair of posters for it. One of ours is signed in pencil: turn the page.
Typewriters, the Adriatic and a scooter.
Fig. 3.1 Olivetti Lexikon 83 DL, 1977 A sun balanced on one finger, the typewriter below. Available · from £290.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 3.2 Olivetti Quaderno, 1993 A giant Q in a tiled room. Printed lozenge on the green skirting. Available · from £290.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 3.3 Rimini, 1995 For the city and Rimini Turismo. The signature is printed in white. Available · from £500.00 · View this poster → 
Fig. 3.4 50 Years of Vespa, 1996 A small printed credit runs up the right edge. Sold · Printed Originals Archive · View the record →
The Glaser IssueItalyp. 03
Feature · Milton Glaser per Campari, 1992
Signed in pencil.
In 1991 the exhibition Milton Glaser/Piero della Francesca opened at Arezzo, marking 500 years since Piero’s death. Campari sponsored it, and it moved to Milan. For the Milan showing, in September 1992, Glaser made a pair of posters. This is the splashing glass.
Now look below the tablecloth, on the right. A grey script reads Milton Glaser, in the white margin. It sits on the paper, outside the image, and its tone matches neither the printed blue nor the small lozenge printed in the cloth. The lozenge is on every copy. The pencil is on this one.
The lozenge is on every copy. The pencil is on this one.
When did he sign it? We do not know. Glaser rarely signed posters when they were issued, and many signatures came much later, like the Dylan posters he signed in coloured crayon for charity in 2018. Ask us and we will send close photographs of the margin.
Show the hand-signed poster in the archive ↓The Glaser IssueFeaturep. 04
Close reading · Stevie Wonder, Philharmonic Hall, 1969
Read the face. Then read the small print.
The Glaser IssueClose readingp. 05
p. 06 · Signature lab
Lozenge, script or pencil?
Glaser rarely signed posters by hand when they came out. Most carry a small printed lozenge reading MILTON GLASER, or a printed script signature. Hand signatures usually came later, often in coloured crayon. Posters printed in his lifetime with no signature at all are marked “unsigned original”: made with the artist, not after him.
Hand-signed
Signed by Glaser on this copy, in pencil or crayon, on top of the print. It can be added years after printing. On our Campari it sits in the margin, apart from the printed lozenge.
On this poster: grey pencil ‘Milton Glaser’ in the white margin, below the tablecloth. Available · from £1,000.00 · View this poster →
Show this poster in the archive ↓
Plate-signed
Printed with the design, so every copy has it: usually a small MILTON GLASER lozenge, sometimes a printed script. White ink on solid colour, as on Rimini, cannot be pencil.
On this poster: white script ‘Milton Glaser’ printed into the turquoise sea, lower right. Available · from £500.00 · View this poster →
Show all 12 in the archive ↓
Unsigned original
His design, printed in his lifetime, with no signature or credit of any kind. Glaser kept the original art for this poster in his own collection. Unsigned is not the same as after.
On this poster: the lower right of the Fall Festival: picture to the border, and no name, lozenge or credit. Available · from £290.00 · View this poster →
Show all 2 in the archive ↓After Glaser
A reproduction of his design made later by a studio, museum or publisher, such as the 2008 studio reprint of the Dylan poster, sold rolled. None in our archive.
p. 08 · Letters
Letters to the editor.
The questions collectors send us most, with our answers. Write in with yours.
Hand-signed, plate-signed, unsigned original: what do the terms mean?
Hand-signed means Glaser signed this copy himself, in pencil or crayon. Plate-signed means his name was printed with the design, usually as a small MILTON GLASER lozenge, so every copy has it. Unsigned original means his design, printed in his lifetime, with no signature at all. After means a later reproduction of his design; we hold none.
How can I tell whether a Glaser poster was printed in his lifetime?
Glaser died in 2020, so anything issued before then is a lifetime printing. Look for printed dates, event dates and printers’ lines, such as Imp. Eurepi on Sans Tabac or A.G. Nidasio on Quaderno. Careful: lifetime does not always mean first issue. His studio reprinted the Dylan poster in 2008.
Is your Dylan poster the 1967 album issue?
The originals were folded and packed into Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits in 1967, so they show fold lines. Ours has them. The 2008 studio reproduction was sold rolled, without folds. Signed copies are rare; most date from Glaser’s 2018 charity signing, in coloured crayon.
Did Glaser sign posters by hand?
Rarely when they came out. Later in life he signed posters for collectors and causes, often in coloured crayon. A hand signature adds value but may be decades younger than the print. We look for graphite or crayon sitting on top of the ink, separate from the printed lozenge.
Can I see the signature or condition more closely?
Yes. Ask us for detailed photographs of any poster, including margins, fold lines and printers’ imprints.
Condition and framing
We grade condition in six steps and describe every mark (condition grading). Framing is optional, and all our framing is conservation framing (framing original posters).