Biography
Elaine Lustig Cohen (1927–2016) was an American graphic designer, artist, and gallerist who bridged mid-century modernism and postwar art. After Alvin Lustig’s death, she led the studio, producing iconic identities and signage for leading architects, then shifted to painting and collage, exploring letterforms, geometry, and color with sharp modernist clarity.
"The wonderful thing about being an artist is you never know exactly where you are going with a process."
Elaine
Lustig Cohen
Assignment
abstract designs of simple geometric letterforms
Initial Concepts & Composition Structure
ABC Watercolor (2007) channels Cohen’s design roots into a lyrical study of A, B, and C as pure form. Transparent washes overlap crisp, geometric shapes, letting letters appear and dissolve through color. The work fuses typographic structure with painterly intuition, turning familiar glyphs into rhythm, space, and movement—an elegant bridge between design rigor and modernist abstraction.
Color Exploration
Playing with color to see how they relate and how they will communicate the ABC abstract concept
Hand Color Painting
Gel Crayon
8x8 in
Final Design
Digital vector renderings
30 x 30"
Created by Carlos Naranjo
July 2025
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Mockup
ABC Abstract Art - Print
“I never thought about design as a business—the visual was my life.”
Credits:
Lusting Cohen - Posters Section:
Left: "2 Kinetic Sculptors," catalog for The Jewish Museum. Elaine Lustig Cohen, 1966.
Center: Painting and Reality, Etienne Gilson, Meridian Books, Elaine Lustig Cohen, 1959
Right: The Romantic Agony, Mario Paz, Meridian Giants, Elaine Lustig Cohen, 1956
Lustig Cohen - Bio Section:
Image from elainelustigcohen.com/biography
Mockup Image:
Adobe Stock
ABC Abstract Picture:
Author: Carlos Naranjo, 2025
Copy About Lustig Cohen: GPT 5.0
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