The Magical Spell of Saul Mandel
April 19 - July 22
In 1986, Graphis stated that Mandel, “deliberately set out to achieve a style that was universal in language and appeal…He added a habit of humor allied to a love of all things childhood.” His simple, smiling, naïve style was “widely understood at once by young and old, and by the ingenuous and the sophisticated.”
“Love and imagination is
Saul Mandel (1926-2011) knew he wanted to be a designer at a young age. In the 1950’s, he began his formal career in Manhattan designing record album covers with Sid Maurar, a fellow classmate from the High School Of Industrial Arts. In those early days, he also worked next to Andy Warhol creating advertisements. Mandel opened his own studio in1958.
Mandel became an award-winning illustrator best known for the Jolly Green Giant (1960’s-1970’s) as well as the Puppy Dog Love Stamp (1986) for the U.S. Post Office. Another well-known and widely-popular advertisement was for Johnson & Johnson Band Aids, Keep a Tiny Cut Tiny. It changed the way kids viewed cuts. They used a band aid whether they cut themselves or not and it became a way of life.
Other iconic artwork included designs for Bank of America, IBM, Lufthansa, TWA, Guinness Beer, State Farm Insurance, General Motors, AT&T, Time Life, Air France, LIVE AID, the United Nations, and numerous magazines. He also contributed to non-profits including the Boy Scouts of America. His posters, Don’t Be A Litterbug and Every Litter Bit Hurts were featured on subways, buses, and billboards throughout New York.
For the majority of his life, Mandel lived and worked in Jericho, New York with his wife Seba, a writer and mother of their five children. Through the early 2000’s, Mandel was still working. Under the guidance of his middle daughter, Suzy, a talented artist in her own right, he learned digital illustration and helped create the brand for her and her husband’s award winning Caldeaux Wine company. In 2007, Suzy’s parents gave her the artwork collection. She vowed to them that she would do her best to preserve and protect Mandel’s legacy. After years of preparation, Suzy is finally able to make good on her promise with this nostalgic and heartfelt exhibit.
This Retrospective, by Suzy Mandel Canter, spans her father’s work from the 1960’s through the present day. It will be presented at Mandel’s favorite place besides his home, the Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators from April 19 – July 22, 2023.