"51" designer?

[Farace]

A friend came back from a used book store with Fountain Pens: History and Design for me. I can't really read it here at work, but I quickly flipped through and noticed a notation that Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (one of my favorite artists) designed the "51." I then did an admittedly quick and non-exhaustive Google search and find that this is accepted by some, and claimed to be myth by others. (One article said that M-N did design work for Parker post-dating the release of the "51"--yet M-N died in 1946, so I question the accuracy of that statement.) Is there any authoritative source stating whether it's true or not? Could the design work have been started by M-N and finished by others after his death?

 

If there's a Nagy connection, it only makes me want a "51" more. I'm still hoping I'll find one as a mate to the Liquid Lead pencil I found among my grandfather's belongings (which still writes).

 

[mirror]

As a poet I sort of specialize in the esoteric and have a pretty good library so tracked this down for you.

 

Donald Bush in the Streamlined Decade credits the design of the Parker 51 to Marlin Baker, Joseph Platt and Kenneth Parker and dates it to 1939.

 

He points out that Moholy-Nagy, who I am a great admirer of, pays homage to the Parker 51 in his book Vision in Motion and if you look at the 1956 edition of that book you can find the citation on page 34. That might be where the impression he designed it comes from.

 

My apologies to the Parker folk if my secondary source on design and year isn’t accurate but I am sure on the Moholy-Nagy information.

 

PS

Nice Avatar. It looks like a Tiepolo Punchinello drawing- what is its origin?

 

[Farace]

Well, it looks like my head got befuddled by numbers and I had my chronology wrong. It's still interesting how adamant some are that Moholy-Nagy designed the 51. Take a look at this site. Makes me wonder if there's still something behind it.

 

As for my avatar, I'm embarrassed to admit I lifted it off the internet (and cropped it to avatar size), and I don't remember where from. Doing a Google image search on "pulcinella" will turn up countless images, of which this is one, and refining the search to "pulcinella mangione" will focus in on a few examples of this painting, although I can't say that any one of them is the spot I copied the painting from. I assume it's an image in the public domain. It's even possible I found it somewhere on the website for the Museo di Pulcinella in Naples, which I'd like to visit someday. I have a longstanding, unexplainable fascination with the character of Pulcinella, and also with pasta making and eating, so the image does double duty for me. Maybe there really is genetic memory; my grandfather, who was born in Minori, Italy on the Amalfi coast and he told me that his father was a foreman at a pasta factory. In fact, my great-grandfather's death certificate lists his occupation as semolaio, which I can't find in any dictionary, but believe confirms my grandfather's story. (The tradition continues: I love making homemade pasta.) At any rate, I should make a point of learning the name of the painting and the artist. I have some of Tiepolo's drawings in a book at home, but I don't recall this being among them. (Sorry for the long-winded explanation.)

 

[mirror]

QUOTE (Farace @ Apr 10 2007, 05:42 PM)

. It's still interesting how adamant some are that Moholy-Nagy designed the 51. It's even possible I found it somewhere on the website for the Museo di Pulcinella in Naples,

I will defer to the Parker experts if there is a story behind the story of its design but the book I quoted from is one of the classics on the streamline style of design and pretty well footnoted.

 

I am a fan of that aesthetic period.

 

Thanks ever so much for the Pulcinella Musuem site!

 

Bottom line the Parker is a gorgeous pen and we both probablly shall soon know more about the story of its design from those who collect them.

 

 

[Farace]

QUOTE (mirror @ Apr 10 2007, 02:31 PM)

I am a fan of that aesthetic period.

As am I. That whole period between the world wars had such an amazing cultural output from art (Dali, Man Ray, Kandinsky, Brancusi . . . the list is endless), music (Puccini to Ellington to Gershwin and more), architecture (like the Chrysler Building), literature (Fitzgerald and Hemingway to Henry Miller and Anais Nin), film (Metropolis immediately comes to mind), industrial design (as we're discussing; and I can't forget my beloved Alfa Romeos), and so much more, and somehow the Bauhaus had input into a lot of it. What an amazing time period. I wish I could have seen it first-hand.

 

BTW, I think I did borrow that image from the Pulcinella Museum site. If you go to the site and click on "Pulcinella e la Gola" on the left, you'll see it partway down the page.

 

[gicoteni]

Hello. You can find a complete story of Parker 51 design in "Parker 51" by David and Mark Shepherd - 2004 - Surrenden Pens Ltd.- Brighton UK. Moholy-Nagy was not the designer of parker 51: he was a consultant of Parker, but after the 51 had already been created. 51 design was the resul of some people working at Parker. First the same Kenneth Parker; other people involved: Marlin Baker, Ivan Teft and Milton Robert Pickus. It is a common mistake consider Moholy-Nagy the responsible of 51 project. But it is a complex story: if interested in Parker 51 you cannot miss that book.

Regarding "semolaio" this word means (excuse for my English, I could explain it better in Italian) foreman in a pasta factory addict to "semolatrice" , that is a machinary to select "semola", the product of wheat milling and first ingredient of pasta. This machine is based on the sharing of product in order to its specific weight using a draught; light particles remain suspended and the heavier ones settle.

Un cordiale saluto! Giuseppe

[Farace]

QUOTE (gicoteni @ Apr 10 2007, 06:48 PM)

Regarding "semolaio" this word means (excuse for my English, I could explain it better in Italian) foreman in a pasta factory addict to "semolatrice" , that is a machinary to select "semola", the product of wheat milling and first ingredient of pasta. This machine is based on the sharing of product in order to its specific weight using a draught; light particles remain suspended and the heavier ones settle.

Grazie tanto. Thank you so much for sharing that. My great-grandfather died around 1914; I wonder if those machines were in use then?

 

[gicoteni]

Good morning. I was wondering the same thing. I guess that "semola" in same way had to be separated and a kind of machine had to be used (a sieve could be enough). Anyway the "semolaio" was someone addict to these operations regarding the selection of "semola". Cordiali saluti again, Giuseppe

 

[Vintagepens]

Looks like you have managed to figure out the answer on your own, though it still bears emphasizing that misinformation can be very, very difficult to stamp out once it takes root.

 

Arthur Twydle had a long career; he was a great guy and very outgoing, so when he repeated what someone had told him about Moholy-Nagy, it was listened to.

 

The Moholy-Nagy canard is not the only one in the field of pen history. Some others are listed here.

 

PS The Dragoni book has some nice illustrations, but as a reference work for American pen history it is a disaster. There's a fancy "Sheaffer" profiled that has nothing to do with Ft. Madison whatsoever, and there are so many errors of fact that one cannot take anything in the text at face value.

Edited April 12, 2007 by Vintagepens

[Farace]

QUOTE (Vintagepens @ Apr 11 2007, 11:20 PM)

PS The Dragoni book has some nice illustrations, but as a reference work for American pen history it is a disaster. There's a fancy "Sheaffer" profiled that has nothing to do with Ft. Madison whatsoever, and there are so many errors of fact that one cannot take anything in the text at face value.

I'll certainly keep that in mind; I've also noticed a very strong emphasis on Italian pens in the book (not surprising, I guess). So, if Moholy-Nagy didn't have a hand in the design of the "51," it begs the question of what he did do for Parker. Doing a quick Google search, I'm finding many, many references to the "51," but nothing else.

 

[Vintagepens]

The Italian emphasis is because it's an Italian book, translated into English.

 

Moholy-Nagy's contributions to Parker are well documented in both Shepherd's book and elsewhere (an old PENnant article, for example), and I'm sure you can look them up easily enough through Google Patents.

 

Perhaps the most common design is that of the holder in Parker's Magnetix desk set, though it seems likely that Moholy-Nagy's criticisms may have had something to do with the simplification of the 51's clip c. 1947.

 

In remembering Moholy-Nagy, Kenneth Parker noted that many of his ideas didn't make it into production; for Parker, he was a valued idea man, thinking way ahead, not always constrained by considerations of practicality but esteemed nonetheless for his vision.