page_title: John Vassos
section_title: Books
hierarchical_section_title: John Vassos / Books
caption_attribution_description: English: cover of Ultimo (1930, E.P. Dutton) by John and Ruth Vassos
context_page_description: John Vassos whose career as an American industrial designer and artist helped define the shape of radio, television, broadcasting equipment, and computers for the Radio Corporation of America for almost four decades. He is best known for both his art deco illustrated books and iconic turnstile for the Perey company, as well as modern radios, broadcast equipment, and televisions for RCA. He was a founder of the Industrial Designers Society of America, in 1965, serving as its first chairman simultaneously with Henry Dreyfuss as its president. Vassos' design philosophy was to make products that were functional for the user.
  A decorated veteran of World War II, Vassos was chief of the OSS "Spy School" in Cairo, Egypt from 1942-1945.
context_section_description: Vassos gained acclaim as an illustrator prior to his rise as an industrial designer. Between 1927–1935, Vassos illustrated many books, including Salome, Ballad of Reading Gaol, and The Harlot's House and Other Poems – three literary works by Oscar Wilde published by E.P. Dutton. Vassos's iconic subjective illustrations were influenced by cinema and reflected cubist and constructivist, geometrical styles. They were often in black and white gouache (opaque watercolor) and well suited for reproduction in mass media. Contempo (1929) written by his wife Ruth Vassos with images by Vassos launched career as a modernist artist.  Contempo is best understood as an exploration of American society during a moment of great transformation in which the American tempo is celebrated as "a certain sharp staccato rhythm almost like a riveting machine that exists nowhere else in the world," as Ruth Vassos wrote. The book also critiques the institutions of mass culture and commercial society. Phobia was his most influential book – inspired by his friend Freudian psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan. It reflects a modern landscape through the perspective of those who suffer from phobias and shaped Vassos's industrial design philosophy. It was performed as a dance by choreographers Gluck Sandor and Felicia Sorel with sets designed by Vassos and had a limited run of 1,000 books. Articles derived from it were published in Esquire Magazine. Ultimo (1930) presented a dystopic vision of a future underground society using streamlined motifs and was a response to debates about an urban landscape dominated by skyscrapers by writers like Lewis Mumford. This was followed by: Humanities (1934), Dogs Are Like That, (1941), Beatrice the Ballerina (under the pseudonym Ivan Vassilovitch, 1943), Rex and Lobo (1946), and illustrations for A Proverb for It: 1510 Greek Sayings (1945). Renewed interest in art deco and in Vassos brought new interest in his illustrated work. In 1976, Dover Books published Contempo, Phobia and Other Graphic Interpretations with a foreword by P.K. Thomajan. In 2009, Dover Books republished Phobia with an introduction by David A Berona.
caption: cover of Ultimo by John and Ruth Vassos (1930, E.P. Dutton)
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