Obituary

Obituary of Muncie Hendler

June 23, 2019

MUNCIE HENDLER, who was designer of City College of New York (CCNY) The Alumnus Magazine for 19 years, through 2017, died suddenly on June 23, 2019. She was 90 years old. She designed the CCNY Communications Alumni Group's newsletter The Communicator for 21 years, through Spring of 2019. Born in Brooklyn 1929, Muncie was talented, reliable, and organized, skilled and trained in a wide range of art forms. In the early 1950's, she painted in Paris, where American and international Abstract Artists exhibited their first shows and lead classes in the 1950's. She then co-owned and managed a gallery in Philadelphia. In addition, Muncie's abilities in detailed drawing opened doors as a mechanical artist with advertising and production studios. Her ceramic and paper forms set her on a path of designing packages, prototypes, and display props for manufacturers.

Muncie had a successful career as a freelance graphic designer and artist. Among her longtime clients with international products were:
Helena Rubinstein, for whom she created cosmetics packages, threw ceramic pots for perfumes, and was in charge of mechanicals; The Rockefeller Foundation, as Assistant Designer for The RF Illustrator, the large scale and full-color, quarterly newspaper; Morgan Stanley, where she was a Designer for real estate investment brochures, catalogues, and slides, Supervisor of Studio Artists, and wrote the studio operating procedures; Back Stage, performing arts weekly newspaper, for which she received an award of recognition as Feature Designer for the front covers.

Others clients included Avon, Clairol, General Foods, Hallmark, Johnson & Johnson, Philip Morris, Schick, Simon & Schuster, Pepsi-Cola, Revlon, Purina, and more. Muncie also created logos and designs for many non-profit organizations, and business individuals.
For Dover Publications Muncie was the author and artist for dozens of design activity books, postcards, and bookmarks, on themes of historic patterns to modern art, which were sold in world museums, toy, and book stores -- including The Smithsonian Museum Shops.

As an independent creative artist, Muncie used a variety of media, including fabric, paint, and ink. Mask making and 3-D paper art were her signature forms of expression.

She is survived by her daughters, Randy Hendler and Jory Cress, her two sons-in-law David Funkhouser and Dean Cress, two grandchildren Dylan and Kyra Lindsay, and first cousins with whom she shared a backyard growing up.