had to be engaged in the Graybar Building in order to prevent him from bulging out of the windows, growing through the roof, or occupying the elevator shafts.” His responsibilities soon came to include Vanity Fair, as well as, the home-style journal House & Garden. Agha incorporated photographs by Edward Steichen, Carl Van Vechten, and Edward Weston, as well as the pictorial feature. Agha left Condé Nast in 1943 and became a sought-after graphic arts consultant for various companies including publishers and department stores. He became president of both the Art Directors Club (1935) and AIGA (1953–55) and became known as an arbiter of good taste in design. In a tribute published by PM Magazine in August 1939, William Golden wrote about the lofty expectations Agha placed on his designers: "Agha's demands seem so simple. Make something legible, present it logically and make it look somehow luxurious... in a way that he will like. So they devise not merely one version of how they think a page should look, but ten, or twenty, or forty... And for sheer productivity this method is unequalled. As for those bales of rejected layouts that have never seen the light of day; I don't think they are completely wasted. Some day, a less jaded scholar of the Graphic Arts will unearth them and discover again the amazing amount of original and exciting work that was stimulated by the man who knew too much to like anything."—DP References Contributors 1934-1942. "M. F. Agha." Dr. Leslie Project. http://www.drleslie.com/Contributors/agha.shtml. Hall of Fame 1972. "M. F. Agha." The Art Directors Club. http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/1972/?id=293. "The Man Who Knew Too Much," by William Golden. PM Magazine. Vol. 5, no. 2 (Aug./Sept. 1939).http://library.rit.edu/gda/content/educational 1896 births 1978 deaths Expatriates from the Russian Empire in France Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States American designers American art directors AIGA medalists