PRINT Magazine - George Lois Talks at MoMA

Museum of Modern Art
George Lois: The Esquire Covers
April 25, 2008 through March 31, 2009

George Lois likes an audience. And ever since he made us want our MTV, brought us Andy Warhol sinking in soup, and told three decades of popular culture how to look, he gets one easily. At the Museum of Modern Art, the fiercely genial 76-year-old stood before a retrospective of his ’60s Esquire covers and held a crowd of opening-party attendees rapt as he gave them an unparalleled personal tour of that era’s politics and celebrity:

Lois on Andy Warhol’s “godawful” wig:

“Every time I saw him I’d say, ‘Straighten out that fucking thing.’ It was a joke between us.”

On Norman Mailer:

“Norman wanted to meet me in Central Park for a fist fight. I showed up—he didn’t.”

On posing Muhammad Ali as St. Sebastian:

“He said, ‘Hey man, this guy’s a Christian! I can’t do it.’ He got [Nation of Islam leader] Elijah Muhammad on the phone—we had a 20-minute conversation about religion.”

On doing the Andy Warhol cover:

“It was like three days of work. These days, it would take 10 minutes.”

On the current state of magazines:

“Nobody today puts ideas on covers. If you put one of [my] covers on the newsstand today it would leap out at you.”

CREDITS

Home page:

Warhol, George Lois, American, born 1931
Cover for Esquire Magazine, Issue no. 426, May 1969
Offset lithography
12 5/8 x 9 7/8" (32.1 x 25.1 cm)
Gift of the designer

Above:

Installation view of George Lois: The Esquire Covers at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2008. Photo: Jason Mandella.