Ave Pildas

Whether photographing jazz greats in smoke-filled clubs, the gritty theatrics on infamous

Hollywood Boulevard, or the spontaneous interactions between people and animals at

locations worldwide – Ave Pildas offers a rich and diverse survey of contemporary life.

Ave began his arts education as an architecture student, designing department stores, and

government and medical buildings. Before long, this path felt too conservative and

constricting, so he changed majors to design. Creating products, packaging, and graphics

provided enough diversity to seem like “complete freedom” at the time. Concurrently, Ave

was designing exhibits, displays, graphics, and publications for the Cincinnati Public

Library. After studying at the University of Cincinnati and graduating from the Cincinnati Art

Academy in 1962, Ave headed east to Pittsburgh, where he worked designing collateral for

U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Koppers, and Westinghouse. At Westinghouse, he

met renowned graphic designer Paul Rand.

With encouragement from Rand and well-known typographer Noel Martin, Ave traveled to

Switzerland and enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeschule, studying typography and graphic

design during the Cold War. As a student, he visited every country in Europe and parts of

North Africa, often by car. It was at this time that Ave set the lofty goal of “raising the visual

conscience” of the world, and, at the conclusion of his studies, accepted a position as

assistant professor at Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in

Philadelphia. Since then, he has taught at Layton School of Art, Leicester Polytechnic in

Britain, Cal Arts, Art Center College of Design, UCLA, USC, as well as Otis College of Art

and Design, where he served as Chair of the Communication Arts Department. He is

currently Professor Emeritus at Otis.

Ave has been taking photos that combine his observational ability with his prowess as a

designer for over fifty years. His photographs have appeared in national and international

publications. Many of his images of Hollywood Boulevard from the 1970s are represented

in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the New York

Public Library, and appear in Ave’s latest Monograph, Star Struck (2022, Deadbeat Club

Press). Three other books of his photographs have been published previously: Art Deco LA

(1978, Harper & Row), Movie Palaces: Los Angeles (2000, Clarkson Potter), and Bijou (2016,

Nazraeli Press).