When Johnson Publishing Company, the groundbreaking Black-owned publisher of Ebony, JET, and other publications, set out in the late 1960s to create a workplace reflecting its confidence, creativity, and cultural influence, it turned to celebrated Palm Springs designers Arthur Elrod and William Raiser. The result was a boldly expressive environment of vivid colors, geometric patterns, distinctive furnishings, art, and richly textured materials.
Their interiors filled an equally groundbreaking work of architecture: Johnson Publishing’s 11-story Modernist headquarters at 820 South Michigan Avenue, designed by John W. Moutoussamy—the only high-rise in downtown Chicago designed by a Black architect. For nearly 40 years, Elrod and Raiser’s interiors remained remarkably intact, creating a rare time capsule of Modernism and the company itself.
By the time Barbara Karant gained rare access to document the building, Johnson Publishing had moved out and its furniture and art were gone. Yet the spaces still bore traces of the writers, editors, photographers, artists, and designers who had worked there. Karant’s photographs preserve an extraordinary record of the interiors before they disappeared.
Join Karant for a behind-the-scenes journey into one of Modernism’s great lost interiors and a largely untold chapter in the careers of Arthur Elrod and William Raiser. Drawing from her new book, 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon (MW Editions, 2026), she reveals how their interiors became inseparable from Johnson Publishing Company’s identity—and why they deserve a prominent place in Modernism’s history.
A book signing follows the presentation.