Skift Take
The full Skift team is going for a company outing to this exhibition next week. How could we not go?
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- L’Atlantique, 1931. Designed by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre. Estimated price: $20,000 – 30,000
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- Normandie/French Line. 1939. Designed by Hubert Herkomer. Estimated price: $15,000-$20,000 Launched in 1935, the Normandie captured the Blue Ribband on her maiden voyage, making the fastest Atlantic crossing to date.
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- The Nation, State And City Welcome The World’s Greatest Aviators. 1909. Designer unknown. Estimated price: $15,000-$20,000. After their initial flight in 1903, the Wright Brothers were met by skepticism at home and virtually ignored by the American press. But after demonstration flights in France in 1908, they were lauded as heroes. Upon their successful return from Europe they were first greeted by President Taft in the White House and then returned to their hometown of Dayton for this massive two day celebration that included parades, concerts, fireworks and receptions, but (perhaps ironically) no flying demonstrations.
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- Wagons Lits / Cook. 1934. Designed by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre. Estimated price: $3,000-$4,000. Advertising for the luxury Express trains of Compagnie des Wagons-Lits. During a visit to the United States in 1872 and inspired by the achievements of the Pullman brothers, Georges Nagelmackers decides to create the “Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits” (CIWL).
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- Tourism in Palestine / Come and See Erezisrael. 1929. Designed by Ze’ev Raban. Estimated price: $6,000 – $9,000 “In small pictures flanking a map of Palestine, a mixture of Jewish sites are shown: traditional Holy Places of the Temple Site, Rachel’s Tomb, The Cave of Machpelah (in Hebron), the Tower of David, the two Zionist schools Bezalel and Herzliya, and the two Zionist colonies Rishon Le-tzyion and Metulah”
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- California/This Summer. 1933. Designer unknown. Estimated price: $6,000 – $9,000 “Travel by Train” was an “inter-modal competitive sales appeal” adapted by many American train companies in the 1930s as widespread use of the automobile began to cut directly into ticket sales.
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- Australia. 1935. Designed by Percy Trompf. Estimated price: $5,000 – $7,500 Clearly aimed at European and American travellers the image encapsulates the notion that Sydney is a sophisticated and modern city along the lines of New York, London or Paris.
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- Paris. 1935. Designed by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre. Estimated price: $3,000 – $4,000 Although produced in the same year as his fabled Normandie poster, this image is an indication of the direction Cassandre’s work would take once he moved to America in 1936.
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- 1939 World’s Fair on San Francisco Bay. 1939. Designed by Shawl, Nyeland & Seavey. Estimated price: $3,000 – $4,000 Rising out of San Francisco Bay, Treasure Island and the Inca-inspired “Tower of the Sun,” are flanked on each side by The Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay bridges. Site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exhibition, the man-made island was one of three government-funded building projects celebrated by the fair; the other two being the construction of both bridges.
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- Visit India/Muttra. 1928. Designed by Roger Broders. Estimated price: $2,500 – $3,500 This is one of three posters Broders designed for travel in India. Here, specifically, the poster is promoting travel on the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.
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- Air France / Amerique Du Nord. 1946. Designed by Guy Arnoux. Estimated price: $2,000 – $3,000 An optimistic post-war image depicting North America as the proverbial “City in the Clouds.” Note the subtle depiction of the stars and stripes.
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- New Mexico and Arizona Rockies. 1934. Designed by William Willmarth. Estimated price: $2,000 – $3,000 In an attempt to encourage citizens to travel to the National Parks, Franklin Roosevelt declared 1934 to be National Parks Year. Posters were heavily involved in this campaign, as were National Parks Year postage stamps, which were released the same year.
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- Visit Holy Isipatana (Sarnath) / India. 1935. Designed by Dorothy Newsome. Estimated price: $1,500 – $2,000 Isipatana (also known as Sarnath) is one of four sites mentioned by the Buddha as adestination for pilgrimages. The Mulagandhakuti Vihara monastery (depicted in white) marks the place where the Buddha spent his first rainy season.
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- His Hunting Ground of Yesterday/National Parks. 1935. Designed by Dorothy Waugh. Estimated price: $1,500 – $2,000 Dorothy Waugh studied design at the Chicago Institute of Art, then moved to New York where she managed Alfred A. Knopf’s children’s book department. During the 1930s, she worked for the National Park Service as production supervisor, as well as provided them with actual artwork and copy.
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- India. 1937. Designed by Gobinda Mandal. Estimated price: $1,200 – $1,800
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- There Is An Air About India./Air India. 1965. Designer Unknown. Estimated price: $600 – $900 A world-renowned and recognized corporate icon, Air India’s Maharaja was born in 1946, the creative genius of Air India’s commercial director, Bobby Kooka, and Umesh Rao, an artist with the Mumbai branch of J. Walter Thompson Ltd.
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- Palestine Airways. 1938. Designed by Oskar Lachs. Estimated price: $1,200 – $1,800 Founded in 1937, when Palestine was still under British mandate, Palestine Air was the second oldest carrier in the Middle East. Her initial fleet consisted of only two aircraft, each a Short S.16 Scion 2, one of which is depicted here. The company ceased operations in 1940 and its planes were taken over by the Royal Airforce.
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- See Bali. 1938. Designed by E. Korver. Estimated price: $800 – $1,200 One in a series of Indonesian travel posters produced in the 1930s by the Information Bureau of the Netherlands Indies. This ethnic, atmospheric, Art Deco-inspired image depicts Mount Batur, one of two active volcanoes on the island.
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- Burma Railways. 1935. Designed by A. Blyth.
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- Egypt/Never Miss The Sunshine On The Pyramids. 1957. Estimated price: $800 – $1,200
Anyone who has spent as much time immersed in travel as we have becomes a sucker for vintage travel posters. And when an event crops up where hundreds of rare and dazzling vintage posters are up for auction only a ten minute walk from our offices, we can’t resist sharing them here.
Swann Galleries is coming up on its annual “Rare & Important Travel Posters” auction — all of them from the early to mid-20th century — exactly a week from now, next Friday, October 18. The auction features 200 posters with images of diverse locations from all around the planet: from the deserts of the Mideast to the alpine resorts of Europe, in addition to posters of early trains, ocean liners, and very early aviation exhibition posters.
Among the rarities include two Art Deco ship posters by A.M. Cassandre, with L’Atlantique from 1931 expected to be the most expensive of the lot, with estimated price of around $20,000 to $30,000. A grand depiction of the Normandie/French Line at night, with lights reflecting off the water, by Hubert Herkomer from 1939 is expected to go for around $15,000 to $20,000.
These posters will be on public exhibition Oct. 14-17 at the galleries, before the auction starts.
We have chosen about 20 of these above in the photo gallery, and we’re partial to the ones from India.
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Tags: arts & culture
Photo credit: Swann Galleries is coming up on its annual "Rare & Important Travel Posters" auction in a week.