Ivan Chermayeff

Son of Serge Chermayeff, an acclaimed Russian-born British architect from a wealthy Jewish Caucasian family, Ivan Chermayeff was born in London in 1932. He spent a part of his childhood at the family’s Bentley Wood estate in Sussex, South East England, in a landmark 1938 timber house considered one of the earliest examples of modernist architecture, frequented by prominent artists and architects including Frank Lloyd Wright. After economic conditions in England deteriorated as the result of the World War II, Chermayeffs went through a personal bankruptcy.

In 1940, when Ivan Chermayeff was 8 years old, they emigrated to the United States in search of better job opportunities. After arriving in the U.S., Chermayeff and his younger brother Peter spent nearly a year living with Walter Gropius in Lincoln, Massachusetts, while his parents looked for permanent housing.

Chermayeff attended no fewer than 24 different schools. He studied at Phillips Academy of Andover, Harvard University, and IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. In 1955, he graduated from the Yale School of Arts and Architecture with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, where he trained under Swiss designer Herbert Matter. The same year he apprenticed with architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and designer Alvin Lustig, and was hired by CBS as assistant Art Director in record cover design department, tasked with producing multiple vinyl record jacket designs per day.

Chermayeff was an accomplished artist and illustrator. Most of his illustrations were made using the collage technique, with occasional use of mixed media, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, serigraphy, lithography, and finger painting. Additionally, Chermayeff designed tapestries and murals. He recalled making art, collages in particular, throughout his life, beginning in his teenage years.

He was particularly drawn to bricolage, utilizing pieces of scrap paper and garbage like candy bar wrappers or used envelopes to depict expressive, abstract faces. He reported to work on collages between phone calls or meetings, with many pieces taking only minutes to assemble. One of his favorite bricolage materials were abandoned work gloves he collected from the streets of New York City. Chermayeff’s collages were exhibited in over 40 solo exhibitions throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

He illustrated multiple children’s books, including Sun Moon Star, a Nativity story, with text by Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1980. Sun Moon Star was later translated into multiple languages, including Japanese. Many of Chermayeff’s other children’s books were co-authored with his children and second wife Jane Clark Chermayeff.

After Chermayeff's death in 2017, a collection of 700 original artworks and illustrations was donated to SVA by his children, and now comprises the Ivan Chermayeff Collection at the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives.

Chermayeff lived on Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Throughout his lifetime, he also owned residences in Girona, Spain, Litchfield, Connecticut, and Garrison, New York.

Chermayeff's final public appearance was at the AIGA Design conference in Minneapolis in October 2017. He died on December 3, 2017, at the age of 85, in New York City.

He was married to Sara Anne Duffy Chermayeff (née Sara Anne Duffy), the daughter of Edmund Duffy, from 1955 until 1977, and to exhibit curator Jane Clark Chermayeff (née Jane Clark) from 1978 until her death in 2014. He had four children: Sam Chermayeff, an architect based in Berlin, Maro Chermayeff, producer, filmmaker, and founder of MFA Social Documentary Film at School of Visual Arts, artist Sacha Chermayeff, and photo editor Catherine Chermayeff. His younger brother Peter Chermayeff is an architect known for aquarium designs.