Lot 69: Jean Carlu, Pour Le Désarmement Des Nations, 1932. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000
Ventes du 10/5/2016 au 10/5/2016 Terminé
Swann Galleries 104 East 25th Street NY 10010 New York États-Unis
On Tuesday, May 10, Swann Galleries will hold an auction of Graphic Design, with posters and ephemera that highlight the shifting trends in imagery and typography styles starting in the late 1800s and moving through the 20th-century, including the use of techniques like photomontage.Swann Galleries 104 East 25th Street NY 10010 New York États-Unis
A highpoint in this sale is a run of posters by American designer Lester Beall. Inspired by the work of European avant-garde artists, Beall used primary colors and clean, simple typography to achieve effective visual communication. Several of his posters, like Rural Electrification Administration, 1939 ($20,000 to $30,000), utilize techniques like photomontage while others, like his 1937 poster for the same organization, focus on clean lines and basic shapes to convey information ($15,000 to $20,000).
© Lot 66: Verlangen Sie Kodak Film Für Lebenswahre Fotos, by an unknown designer.
Estimate $800 to $1,200
Beall was one of the first American designers to incorporate tactics from the New Typography movement, which rejected the traditional ideas of informational arrangement and allowed designers and artists to focus on the poster as a blank field on which to compose, much like a canvas. German designer and typographer Jan Tschichold was one of the fathers of this movement, and his 1938 poster Der Berufsphotograph ($12,000 to $18,000) advertising The Professional Photographer exhibition in Basel is also included in the sale.
A small group of lots advertising Kodak are also included in the sale. Among them are Verlangen Sie Kodak Film Für Lebenswahre Fotos by an unknown designer, featuring a cheerful young woman and her dog ($800 to $1,200); and R. Queinnec’s Kodak / Brownie Flash, circa 1950s, advertising a variant of the American Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash manufactured in France ($600 to $900).
© Lot 164: Lester Beall, Rural Electrification Administration, 1939.
Estimate $20,000 to $30,000
Other lots that feature photomontage techniques include two works printed by Paul Martial, both titled [O.T.U.A.], silver print photomontages, circa 1930 ($4,000 to $6,000 and $3,000 to $4,000). Jean Carlu’s moving Pour le Désarmement des Nations, 1932, is the first poster the artist produced for the Office de Propagande Pour la Paix in Paris ($3,000 to $4,000). Carlu was also one of the first artists to use and fight for the use of photographs in posters.
The auction will be held Tuesday, May 10, beginning at 1:30 p.m. The auction preview will be open to the public Saturday, May 7 from noon to 5 p.m.; Monday, May 9 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Tuesday, May 10 from 10 a.m. to noon.
An illustrated auction catalogue is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at http://www.swanngalleries.com