On view at UMBC's Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery from January 30 through March 9, "Massin in Continuo: A Dictionary" is the first United States exhibition of the French graphic design artist Robert Massin (known simply as Massin). It explores the work of self-taught French designer Massin and his groundbreaking career. The exhibition is curated by Laetitia Wolff, founder of the New York-based marketing/design firm futureflair and editor-in-chief of Graphis magazine.

While Massin is relatively famous in France, his originality and influence in graphic design is not as well known in the United States. The exhibition will give American audiences the opportunity to explore his innovative work within the context of the developing graphic design industry in France.

A model of creativity, Massin transcended many long-established boundaries in the field of graphic design and works within multiple disciplines with elegance, humor and diversity. His career has been groundbreaking, spanning editorial graphics, poster and logo design, art direction, typography, photography, publishing, design education and writing.

Long before the idiosyncratic, broken type of Pentagram, Massin dared to play with letters, manipulating the alphabet, cutting titles, experimenting with forms, signs and fonts, and creating surprising three-dimensional limited-edition covers. He also created a popular series of creative book bindings.

Collaborating with playwright Eugene Ionesco and writer Raymond Queneau, Massin explored the realm of kinetic typography, making their texts come alive in what he calls "expressive typography." Massin has worked for Gallimard, publishing empire of the French literary intelligentsia, for over forty years. In Gallimard's 1964 edition of La Cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) by Ionesco, Massin combined the pictorial directness of a comic book with the expressive letter forms of Futurist poetry to create a design masterpiece of "visualized literature."

The exhibition includes futureflair's documentary film on the artist. In addition, futureflair has produced a poster designed by Mirko Illic, sponsored by Scheufelen Paper and Arti Grafiche, which functions as a catalog and documents the life and work of Massin with a chronology and interpretative texts.

"Massin in Continuo" was first shown at the Cooper Union Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography. It is sponsored in part by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York; and Les Editions Gallimard, Paris, and its presentation at UMBC is supported in part by an Arts Program Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Friends of the Library & Gallery.

Admission to the Gallery is free. Hours: Monday, Tuesday and Friday, 12-4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 12-8 p.m.; and Saturday, 1 - 5 p.m. For more information call (410) 455-2270. Click here for a list of upcoming visual arts events.