The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Time: 6 –8 p.m., MST
Where: Copenhagen Imports 3660 E Fort Lowell Rd, Tucson
Admission: Free, but reservation is required
William L. Bird, author of In the Arms of the Saguaros, will take part in a Tucson Modernism Week event with Herb Greif, a pioneering advertising man, illustrator, and designer whose work helped shape the visual and architectural identity of postwar Tucson. Greif joins Bird and Carlos Lozano for a conversation about his life, work, and legacy. Together they will explore how art, design, and advertising intersected in mid-century Tucson, and how Greif’s creative vision continues to resonate in the city’s modern landscape. William L. Bird is a curator emeritus of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. His interests lie at the intersection of politics, popular culture, and the history of visual display.
This Tucson Modernism Week event is hosted at Copenhagen Imports and includes a reception and exhibition of Greif’s original works, presented among the store’s modern furnishings. The event is free, but reservations are required.
About the book:
Through text and lavish images, In the Arms of the Saguaros explores the saguaro’s growth into a western icon from the early days of the American railroad to the years bracketing World War II, when Sun Belt boosterism hit its zenith and proponents of tourism succeed in moving the saguaro to the center of the promotional frame. This book explores how the growth of tourism brought the saguaro to ever-larger audiences through the proliferation of western-themed imagery on the American roadside. The history of the saguaro’s popular and highly imaginative range points to the current moment in which the saguaro touches us as a global icon in art, fashion, and entertainment.
