Painter and graphic artist Paula Scher’s new solo exhibition features contemporary map paintings. The Maps offers fresh perspectives on the art of map-making, not unlike the works of Jasper Johns’ representational maps of the United States, or Alighiero Boeti’s embroidered, communal renditions. Scher comments on societal clichés in The Maps series with a representational piece of South America featuring bold and bright colors, stereotypical of Latin American culture. The America map is impressively large, commenting on the size of the country.

Scher has developed identity and branding systems, promotional materials, environmental graphics, packaging and publication designs for The New York Times Magazine, the American Museum of Natural History, the Asia Society, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Phillips Van-Huesen, Anne Klein, Citigroup, 3Com, Herman Miller, Metropolis and the New York Botanical Garden. In 1996, Scher’s influential identity for the Public Theater won the Beacon Award for integrated corporate design strategy.

Scher’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Zurich Poster Museum, the Denver Art Museum and the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. A book on her work was published in 1998 by China Youth Press.

In addition to the Beacon Award, Scher has received hundreds of design awards, including four Grammy nominations from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1998, she was inducted into the The Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she received the Chrylser Award for Innovation in Design. Scher has served as a principal at graphic design firm Pentagram since 1991.