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Ruth Ansel has been art director of three of the most influential magazines of all time. On each occasion, she was the first woman in the post. In the first of a series on women designers, Angela Tillman Sperandio and Samira Bouabana meet the first lady of art direction
Hall of Femmes is an initiative by Swedish design studio Hjarta Smarta which aims to bring to wider attention the work of leading female designers via a series of lectures and books. In this extract from the first book, Hjarta Smarta's Angela Tillman Sperandio and Samira Bouabana interview Ruth Ansel, art director of some of the most influential magazines of the past 40 years.
Ruth Ansel has always been at the right place at the right time. Back in the 60s, when she was just 24, she and Bea Feitler became co-art directors of Harper's Bazaar. In the 70s, she was the art director of The New York Times Magazine, in the 80s, Vanity Fair. Each time, she was the first woman in that position. In recent years, she has run her own studio in New York - Ruth Ansel Design - producing books such as Taschen's much-talked-about, 20-inch tall monograph on the photographer and artist Peter Beard. Today, Ruth is 70 years old and still working. We talked to her at her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Let's go back to how it all started . How did you land that first job at Harper's Bazaar?
Bazaar was considered one of the most influential fashion magazines in America because it exemplified the best use of clean and modern layouts. I wanted to work there with [art director] Henry Wolfe but, instead of finding him, I found Marvin Israel. It was the greatest stroke of luck in my life. Although I didn't have a graphic design portfolio he decided to take a risk and hire me anyway. He liked the idea that I didn't have to unlearn graphic design cliches. Bea Feitler - his protege and star pupil from [art school] Parsons - had been hired a month earlier.
The whole Bazaar art department consisted of just the three of us. My first few months were a disaster. My layouts were terrible and I was...