Poster Invitation to a Cooper Union Alumni Event, Signed by Alum Lou Dorfsman

New York City, 1968. 20 x 28 inches. Folded with some tears at folds, slightly wrinkled; inscribed “Sam – / You must come! / Send money / Lou Dorfsman”. Very good plus.. An invitation to the “Recooperation Baths”, which seems to be an annual get-together for Cooper Union alumni. Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by business magnate Peter Cooper to offer a tuition-free education in practical areas such as architectural drawing, shorthand, and the like. No longer free, Cooper Union now consists of three schools: art, architecture, and engineering. Graphic designer Lou Dorfsman (1918–2008), who inscribed this poster with a message for “Sam”, graduated from Cooper Union in 1939. He would serve on its board of directors and, as this poster states, on its Alumni Committee. More famously, Dorfsman was the art director and later creative director at CBS, where he designed not just programming advertisements but also sets and the CBS headquarters’ interior. The poster promises alumni “an evening of gayety, jollity, merriment, entertainment, swimming, dancing, drinking, dining” at the Woolworth Building in Tribeca – probably at its private basement swimming pool.