Alexey Brodovitch, born in 1898, began his career as a White Russian hussar astride a horse, serving in Romania. He arrived in Paris in 1920, penniless, fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. There he began to paint scenes for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, and designed book covers and department-store posters. He was lured to Philadelphia in 1930 to teach advertising and commercial design at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, and in 1934 was poached by Harper’s Bazaar. As art director of the magazine, Brodovitch seized oversight of layouts and redefined the job to include control of typography, photography, and illustration, from a project’s inception to print. He became legendary for the new crop of photographers he mentored—Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, and Henri Cartier-Bresson among them. “Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me” introduces the man’s groundbreaking achievements to a wider audience. —Patricia Zohn