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William “Bill” Golden
— Born March 31, 1911 Manhattan, New York; death October 23, 1959. His age 48 death was reported as unexpected and sudden. No cause given.
Married to Cipe Pineles, born 23 June 1908 in Glimany, Austria; death January 3, 1991. Cipe would later remarry to Will Burtin, another influential designer.
Children: Tom Golden is an adopted son. (3)
Cipe Pineles Golden’s story is every bit as interesting, and perhaps more intriguing than her husband’s. While she was born in Austria, Cipe came from a Polish Jewish family. Her siblings and mother are Polish born. She arrived in the USA in 1928 at age 14. Cipe was accompanied by her mother Bertha Pineless and older siblings: Solomon, Jacob, and Regine. No husband or father was listed on the manifest. The family’s name is spelled ‘Pineless’ although Cipe appears to have dropped the double ‘s’ in her chosen spelling of the name.
Per the 1930 census (1), the Pineless family lived in Brookyn and Cipe was already employed as an artist. Cipe would enjoy a very successful career as a graphic designer and art director in New York at such magazines as Seventeen, Charm and Mademoiselle. In 1943, Pineles became the first female member of the Art Directors Club. She was later inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1975. In 1947 she became art director of Seventeen, in 1950 she was art director at Charm, and move in 1961 to become art director of Mademoiselle. (2)
William Golden’s Career summarized from Wikipedia:
William Golden was an American graphic designer. He is best known for his work at Columbia Broadcasting System, starting in the CBS Radio promotion department (before broadcast television existed) and culminating in his tenure as creative director of advertising and sales promotion for CBS Television Network.
William Golden was born in lower Manhattan on March 31, 1911, the youngest of twelve children. His only formal schooling was at the Vocational School for Boys, where he learned photoengraving and the basics of commercial design. Upon his graduation from school in 1928, the seventeen-year-old Golden left home and moved to Los Angeles to work for a photoengraving and lithography firm, and while in Los Angeles he also worked in the art department of the Examiner. Golden returned to New York in the early 1930s, where he worked first as a promotional designer for Hearst’s Journal American before joining the staff of House & Garden magazine, a production of Condé Nast Publications.
In 1937, Golden left Condé Nast and joined the promotion department at CBS, where he worked for three years before being promoted to art director. Golden’s design program went beyond the promotion of CBS as a radio network, producing advertisements that helped to define radio as a news medium. His ads emphasized the ability of radio to bring historic events to its audience in a way no other medium could at that time. Golden took a leave of absence in 1941 to join the Office of War Information in Washington, D.C. In 1943, he entered the U.S. Army as a private, and served in Europe as art director of army training manuals. He was discharged from the military in 1946 with the rank of captain.
Golden returned to CBS as television was growing to become the dominant medium of communication in America. William Golden is considered to be the chief architect of the CBS identity and the famous CBS Eye logo.
William Golden was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. The Wikipedia entry for William Golden is an almost verbatim transcript of the Hall of Fame induction biography.
Sources and Notes
(1) 1930; Census Place: Brooklyn, Kings, New York; Roll: 1514; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 0064; Image: 740.0; FHL microfilm: 2341249
(2) Wikipedia entry for Cipe Pineles.
(3) Graphic Design Archive Online, go to biographies.
You are welcome to add to or to correct this story by contacting: Bill Golden, Norfolk1956@gmail.com
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