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Arnold Bank Collection of Calligraphy and Letter Arts

"Calligraphy is the autographics of alphabetics. . . . Calligraphy is simply the art of writing,
or of sketching and drawing transferred to the use of letter design, on the beautiful blank
of a fine sheet of paper. . . . Now in doing it, it has to be clear and it has to be beautiful."
Arnold Bank (1908-1986)


Arnold Bank, Carnegie Mellon University professor in the Design Department from 1960-1984, was a calligrapher of international stature. His career spanned the fields of education, publishing, advertising, printing, and architectural lettering. Bank, as a Senior Fulbright Fellow, taught at the Royal College of Art in London from 1954-1957, and was art director in the Time magazine promotion department from 1941-1947.

In 1985 the University Libraries acquired Arnold Bank's professional papers. The collection is rich in drawings for his major works and commissions, historical samples of calligraphy, teaching tools and lectures, correspondence, and samples of work from his students and colleagues, world-wide. A finding aid to the collection is available.

The work of Arnold Bank includes the lettering for the inscription on the memorial to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. at Rockefeller Center, the editorial lettering for the serialization of The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway in Life magazine, and the masthead used for more than forty years by the weekly journal Printing News.