When the group Joy Division was working with Saville on this design and asked him what he had in his studio, "out came Pierre Wolff, and images of tombs," as he would later recall, "because I think they look trendy." With hindsight this choice seems to have been aligned with lead singer Ian Curtis's suicidal depression. Saville was interested in creating a frisson from wrapping a neoclassical style of typography and subject matter "around a twentieth-century piece of vinyl, on which is the sound and language of 1980. The graphics are purely historical, but the totality is a modern mix."

Gallery label from

Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, November 15, 2014–January 17, 2016.

Medium Lithograph
Dimensions 12 3/8 x 12 3/8" (31.4 x 31.4 cm)
Credit Committee on Architecture and Design Funds
Object number 194.2015
Department Architecture & Design

Explore more

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.