Alvin Eisenman (June 18, 1921 – September 3, 2013)[1] was an Americangraphic designer and educator throughout the last half of the 20th century. He was most notable for founding and heading theYale School of Art's graduate program ingraphic design beginning in 1951 — the first graduate program in graphic design in the United States. He remained the director of that program until his retirement in 1990, at which point he was succeeded bySheila Levrant de Bretteville. Eisenman continued to teach in the program through the 1990s.
Raised in ruralDuBois, Pennsylvania, Eisenman did his undergraduate work in graphic arts atDartmouth College. After World War II, Eisenman took a position as a designer for theMcGraw-Hill Book Company. By 1950, Eisenman was inNew Haven, first in the role as a designer for the Yale Press and soon becoming a leader in establishing a graduate program for graphic design at Yale. For the early program, Eisenman drew faculty from theRoyal College of Art in London (as part of a faculty exchange system) and recruited liberal arts graduates from Yale,Harvard and theRhode Island School of Design. The Yale graphic design program in the 1950s was successful in bringing together established and upcoming designers such asPaul Rand,Herbert Matter,Armin Hofmann,Bradbury Thompson,Wolfgang Weingart,Lorraine Ferguson,Josef Albers,Alan Fletcher[1],Lester Beall andAlexey Brodovitch[2]Archived 2016-03-10 at theWayback Machine. Eisenman is interviewed in the 2010 filmThe Visual Language of Herbert Matter discussing Matter at Yale.
From 1960 to 1963, Eisenman was also head of theAmerican Institute of Graphic Arts. He was awarded theAIGA medal in 1990.
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