Monday, May 15, 2023 – POSTER AND ADVERTISING ART THAT ARE MASTERPIECES

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

MONDAY,  MAY 15,  2023

ISSUE  990

GRAPHIC ART

ON AUCTION AT

SWANN GALLERIES

Swann’s annual Graphic Design auction gets better and better with each passing year. As more people find interest and delight in the material, still others bring us wonderful material to offer. Thisyear’s is one of the strongest auctions we have ever assembled. On offer are standout items from across the globe with a myriad of art movements, including Jugendstil and Secession, Art Deco, Futurism, Mid-Century Modernism and Swiss Realism. Two large archives of ephemeral material lend to the sale an angle that it has seldom had, but one that is of great interest to the market:ephemeral design such as postcards, books, magazines, pamphlets and beyond.

ULIUS KLINGER (1876-1942) FLUGPLATZ JOHANNISTHAL / FLUGWOCHE. Circa 1910. 26 1/2×17 1/2 inches, 67 1/4×44 1/2 cm. Hollerbaum & Schmidt, Berlin. Condition B: creases and restoration at edges, in image and along vertical fold; repaired tears at edges. Advertising a National Flying Week event, Klinger has created an unforgettable image of four anachronistic orange men in identical ruffled collars, their heads, and noses, pointing straight up to the sky, watching the (unseen) activity over head. One of several variations used in different years, always advertising a flying exhibition. Klinger 74, Rademacher p. 106 (var), Kunst Kommerce Visionen 253.

GREAT GRAPHIC DESIGN UP FOR AUCTION AT SWANN GALLERIES***

LADISLAV SUTNAR (1897-1976) VYSTAVA MODERNIHO OBCHODU / [MODERN COMMERCE EXHIBITION]. 1929. 18×24 inches, 45 3/4×61 cm. Melantrich, Prague. Condition A-: minor repaired tears and creases in margins; minor restoration in image. Matted. Ladislav Sutnar was both a professor and practitioner of design. In addition to teaching at Prague’s State School of Graphic Art, he was also a pioneer in the fields of informational graphics and corporate identity and was the official designer of the Czechoslovak Government’s exhibitions in foreign countries (winning several awards for his work in this field). His ground-breaking Functionalist work was largely a fusion of Bauhaus ideas and typography, Constructivism, and his own work with photomontage and design. In the mid 1920s he is believed to be the first Czech designer to have incorporated photomontage into poster design (Sutnar p. 305) and by the 1930s, photomontages figured prominently in many of his book jacket designs and were a hallmark of his work. This poster promotes one of three trade fairs occurring in Brno, Czechoslovakia’s second largest city, in the late summer of 1929 (the other two, a Brewery & Malting exhibition and an exhibition on Modern Women are mentioned at the bottom of the poster), The image boasts three of the city’s newest and finest functionalist architecture projects: the Avon Hotel (seen at left), the Commercial and Industrial Palace and the Commercial Tradesmen’s Pavilion. Universally considered to be one of Sutnar’s finest designs, this poster “poetically cumulates current communication symbols [into] something of a Functionalist version of the ‘pictorial poem’ . . . [it reflected] the approaches of Cubist and Constructivist pictorial collages” (Sutnar, p. 305). Writing in 1961 in Visual Design In Action, Sutnar stated: “In our ‘visual civilization,’ words are superseded by images, drawings, graphs and other visual symbols which convey the message faster, more reliably and more convincingly than verbal descriptions.” This is the Czech version. Rare. We have found no other copy at auction in over 20 years. Sutnar 546, Avant Garde p. 142, Weill 460, Czech Functionalism 271, Czech Avant Garde p. 61, Modernism 129, Trade Fair 61, Berman / Juan March p. 142, Clash of Ideologies p. 82, Witkovsky pl. 44. Art Institute of Chicago 2009.297.

Ludwig Hohlwein, Zeiss / Feldstecher, 1912. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000.

Vic, Shell Oil & Petrol / For Quick – Starting, 1930. Estimate $1,500 to $2,000.

Massino Vignelli, Knoll Au Louvre, four-part poster, 1972. Estimate $2,500 to $3,500.Another long-standing design relationship was between Knoll and Massimo Vignelli. Massimo and his wife Lella formed their own design firm, Vignelli Associates, in the 1970s, with such notable clients such as Bloomingdales, IBM, American Airlines, and Knoll. Their designs for Knoll included many projects based on a simple grid concept—from stationery to brochures, to posters. Vignelli Associates even designed the posters and exhibition space for a Knoll retrospective in France. The posters, shown here, were printed in four parts, and in at least two sizes.

Paul Rand, IBM, 1982. Estimate $2,500 to $3,500.

Paul Rand, Ford / Signs That Say Safe Driving, circa 1966. Estimate $700 to $1,000.It is impossible to explore the history of corporate branding without thinking of Paul Rand. A modern master of design, Rand is responsible for the visual identities and logos for companies such as ABC, American Express, UPS, and perhaps most famously, IBM. He designed IBM’s logo in 1956, then consulted for the company for over 30 years. His famous Rebus poster was devised in 1981, and has since become one of the most famous and recognizable corporate identity statements of the twentieth century. One of his lesser known posters, but for an equally identifiable company, is that of Ford, shown above.Related Reading:

Edmond Maurus, Chrysler, circa 1930s. Sold May 2019 for $13,750.While very little is known of Edmond Maurus, his graphic legacy is defined by a stylized Art Deco sensibility. This is one of his most dynamic images, a masterwork of perspective and suggestion. It is a fascinating concept to only show the grill of the car and leave the rest to the imagination of the viewer. What is seen is the verdant country route the automobile has taken, and what is implied is the speed of the vehicle via the streaks in the road and the thinly visible dust cloud extending back down the road.

At Auction May 19: Javier Gómez Acebo & Máximo Viejo Santamarta, San Sebastian / XI Circuito Automovilista, 1935. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000.

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