Elaine Lustig Cohen

Elaine Lustig Cohen was born Elaine Firstenberg in Jersey City, New Jersey on March 6, 1927. She studied art for two years at Sophie Newcomb College, part of Tulane University, in New Orleans. She transferred to the University of Southern California and received a bachelor's degree in art education in 1948. While interning at the Modern Institute of Art in Los Angeles, she met design pioneer Alvin Lustig. They were married the same year. She taught junior high school for one year before leaving to work in her husband's office as a secretary, production assistant, and draftsperson.

She became a graphic designer after her husband's death in 1955. She finished the signage for the Seagram Building in Manhattan. She went on to design museum catalogs, furniture, and book covers. Her clients included the Jewish Museum, General Motors, the Museum of Primitive Art, the Federal Aviation Administration, Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art, and the 1964 World's Fair. She eventually became a painter.

She married Arthur A. Cohen, an author and the founder of Noonday Press and Meridian Books, in 1956. In 1973, the couple founded Ex Libris, which sold antiquarian books and periodicals. She is the co-author with Steven Heller of Born Modern. She died on October 4, 2016 at the age of 89.

030