What is great about being an artist – painter, designer, sculptor, photographer or in other visual media – is that throughout your life you can keep opening doors that you never knew existed.

Elaine Lustig Cohen 

Each holiday season, we select an image for our member holiday card that inspires and draws attention to the work of an architect, artist, or designer important to the Modern movement. This year, we highlight the work of Elaine Lustig Cohen (1927–2016), a pioneering New York-based artist, designer, archivist, and rare book dealer. 

Below, this year's holiday card artwork was originally featured on Elaine and Arthur Cohen’s 1958 New Year’s Day Party invitation. Held at their New York City apartment, mulled wine was served from 4–7:30pm. 

In fact, mulled wine must have been a popular staple their Jan. 1–parties, because their 1959 New Year's Day party invitation (below) featured "A Spirited Equation" – orange pomander studded with cloves + French red wine from the Rhone valley + Courvoisier cognac = mulled wine. Cheers! 

Elaine became one of the leading female designers of her era after inheriting the design practice of her first husband Alvin Lustig, upon his death in 1955. She designed book covers, catalogs, graphic identities, logos, and signage for clients including Philip Johnson, Meridian books, the FAA, the Jewish Museum and the 1964 World’s Fair. By the late 1960s, she shifted to art, exploring abstraction, collage, and typography. She remarried and alongside her husband Arthur Cohen, founded Ex Libris, an antiquarian bookstore specializing in avant-garde 20th-century art and architecture. Cohen continually reinvented her practice, merging design and art with boundless curiosity. In 2011, she received the AIGA Medal for her contributions to graphic design.

Visit elainelustigcohen.com to see more of Elaine's incredible work.