Steven Guarnaccia (born 1953, Bridgeport, Connecticut) is an American illustrator and designer. In an interview for the publication American Illustration, Guarnaccia credited the origin of his interest in illustration to two bouts of rheumatic fever as a child, during which time he was bedridden and spent the time reading and drawing. After attending Brown University for two and a half years in the early 1970s and studying at Rhode Island School of Design, his first illustration was published in the New York Times letters page in 1977. His first commission came the same year: to illustrate a recurring column in the New York Times Magazine, and regular commissions from New York Magazine followed; jobs which established Guarnaccia as a freelance illustrator.

Guarnaccia served as an adjunct professor of illustration at Parsons School of Design at The New School from 1981 to 1992, during which time he coordinated a class entitled The Satiric Image, which featured guest lectures and critiques by important illustrators such as Robert Grossman and Edward Sorel. In 1988, Guarnaccia became a founding faculty member of the MFA design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. From 2001 to 2004 Guarnaccia was art director of the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, and from 2004 to 2011 he served as chair of the Illustration Department at Parsons School of Design, where he remained as an associate professor until his retirement in 2021. Among the courses Guarnaccia taught as associate professor at Parsons were Experimental Children’s Book, in which innovative book forms and visual narratives were explored, and Pictozine, in which self-published visual anthologies were created and presented at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in New York.

During his varied career, Guarnaccia has designed watches for Swatch, ties for GQ magazine, and holiday cards for The Museum of Modern Art. He has also authored and illustrated numerous children’s books, including Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne (2000), The Three Little Pigs: an Architectural Tale (2010) and Cinderella: a Fashionable Tale (2013). Guarnaccia’s books on illustration and design include: Graphic Wit: The Art of Humor in Design (1991, co-authored by Gail Anderson), Designing for Children (1994, co-authored by Steven Heller), and Black and White (2002, co-authored by Susan Hochbaum). Guarnaccia’s illustration and design work has been selected for recognition by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), American Illustration, and the New York Art Directors Club, and his work has been exhibited internationally.

Guarnaccia is married to fellow illustrator and Parsons BFA professor Nora Krug, and as of 2022, he is an emeritus professor at Parsons School of Design at The New School.

References

Course Catalogs. “Parsons School of Design/Otis Art Institute.” Parsons School of Design Course Catalog Collection. 1981-2017. The New School Archives Digital Collections, New York, New York.

“Course Descriptions, Parsons The New School for Design: School of Art and Design History and Theory, School of Art, Media, and Technology, School of Constructed Environments, School of Design Strategies, School of Fashion.” New School Digital Course Data Collection. 2010-2012. The New School Archives Digital Collections, New York, New York.

“Fifteen Years of MFA Design.” School of Visual Arts. Accessed July 7, 2022. https://design.sva.edu/blog/fifteen-years-of-mfa-design/.

Kronberg, Michael. “What’s Black and White and Red All Over?” Parsonspaper, May 1985, 11. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050601_ParsonsPaper_1985_003.

Newman, Robert. “Illustrator Profile--Steven Guarnaccia: ‘The World Needs Artists to Tell Stories.” American Illustration - American Photography: AI-AP’s Profiles, September 30, 2016. https://www.ai-ap.com/publications/article/17779/illustrator-profile-steven-guarnaccia-the-worl.html.

“Steven Guarnaccia.” Parsons: Faculty, The New School. Accessed July 7, 2022. https://www.newschool.edu/parsons/faculty/steven-guarnaccia/.

“Steven Guarnaccia.” Worldcat.org. Accessed July 7, 2022. https://www.worldcat.org/ (Search = "Steven Guarnaccia.)

“Steven Guarnaccia: About.” StevenGuarnaccia.com. Accessed July 7, 2022. https://www.stevenguarnaccia.com/about.