Robert D. Darrach, magazine art director

Robert D. Darrach, 85, an art director in the 1960s for national magazines published in Philadelphia, died Thursday, Sept. 13, of complications from pneumonia at a nursing home in Lebanon, N.H.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Darrach attended La Salle College High School and served in the Army Air Force from 1944 to 1946, photographing, among other work, the sites of plane crashes and bombings in Japan in the year after World War II.

Mr. Darrach earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at what is now the University of the Arts in 1947 and taught and lectured on drawing at his alma mater, known then as the Philadelphia Museum College of Industrial Art.

In the early 1960s, his daughter Amanda said, he was assistant art director for Farm Journal on the south side of Washington Square and then the art director of promotions at the Saturday Evening Post on the north side of the square.

He then led the creative division for Goodway, a printing firm in Philadelphia, his daughter said.

In 1970, Mr. Darrach founded Mandala, a graphics design firm in Philadelphia, and served as its president until he retired in 1977.

Mr. Darrach received several awards for his work at meetings of the Art Directors' Club of Philadelphia, including a 1961 event at which he won five gold medals, his daughter said.

Before and after retirement, he produced large paintings and sculptures in bronze and in wood. "He was commissioned to do a lot of portraits," his daughter said, "which he did in oils."

Besides daughter Amanda, Mr. Darrach is survived by his wife, Jane; sons Jeffrey and Jason; daughters Jennifer Addy, Janet Carter, and Nicola Darrach Ellar; a sister; 12 grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and his former wife, Margaret Darrach.

A life celebration is being planned.