Posters have always been sources of inspiration for me and they have been a powerful means of conveying ideas over time. An email arrived in my inbox notifying me of a sale of rare prints and some of the images are old favourites of mine, so I took a look.
It can be interesting and often enlightening to see what value an item has at a particular time, and looking through the lots reminded me of how valuable prints can become.
These are a few of the items offered for sale:
Suggested Bid: $4,800
Artist: PRIVAT LIVEMONT (1861-1936) Size: 37 1/4 x 50 3/8 in./94.5 x 127.8 cm Imp. J. Barreau, Paris “In 1902 and 1903, Livemont created several posters for the Automobile Club of France and its shows, personifying the organization with his delicate Art-Nouveau women. Here, the figure is seated on a throne in front of the Grand Palais exhibition hall, drenched in roses and hints of an international throng come to admire progress. As was Livemont’s custom, he gives the auto goddess a white outline, this time adding a halo resembling an automotive flywheel” (Gold, p. 56).
Estimated Price: $6,000 – $7,000
Suggested Bid: $3,200
Artist: JEAN DROIT (1884-1961) Size: 30 3/4 x 44 7/8 in./78 x 113.9 cm Imp. Hachard, Paris More than 3,000 participants from forty-four countries descended on Paris during the late spring of 1924 for the VIIIth Olympiad. From the 150 sketches submitted in the poster competition, the French Olympic Committee selected two — this one and another by Orsi (see PAI-XXVIII, 465).
“The revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 had been one manifestation of the late-nineteenth century preoccupation with physical culture and ancient Greek ideals of physical beauty; by the early twentieth century an awareness of the healthy body and an enthusiasm for sports and physical prowess had developed yet further.
It found particular expression in modernism, in which an emphasis on the active and perfectible body, and on individual and collective fitness, was crucial to the movements social agenda. The espousal of mass physical culture became a source of national pride and strength, as perfectly exemplified in Jean Droit’s image: the group of male athletes, right arms raised in a demonstration of unity and heroic endeavor, is pictured amid laurels of victory, the red, the white and the blue of the Tricolour and the Paris coat of arms” (Olympic Posters, p. 35).
Cycles Gladiator ca. 1895
Estimated Price: $4,000 – $5,000
Suggested Bid: $20,000
Artist: ANONYMOUS Size: 54 3/4 x 39 5/8 in./139 x 100 cm Imp. G. Massias, Paris Arguably the most famous of all bicycle posters, this image of a redheaded sylph being propelled through the sky by the unparalleled speed of her Gladiator cycle appears on everything in contemporary culture from wine labels to our company’s blog. And yet the design itself remains uncredited, despite the presence of the faint initials L.W. in the lower right corner. A lithographic masterpiece.
Estimated Price: $25,000 – $30,000
