Beschreibung:

EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954) A SUBWAY POSTER PULLS. 1947. 45x30 inches. Condition A-: repaired tears in margins. Framed. American born Kauffer rose to prominence as a graphic designer in Great Britain, where his work for Shell and the London Transport System, among others, assured him a place on the list of great 20th century graphic artists. Returning to America in 1939, Kauffer spent the war years working primarily on institutional commissions. When the New York Subways Advertising Company launched a new campaign in 1947, Kauffer was among the established artists chosen to contribute designs. The artists involved in the project were the most prominent practitioners of the craft ever assembled, many of whom had immigrated from Europe, and included Erik Nitsche Otis Shepard, Joseph Binder Jean Carlu Herbert Bayer Paul Rand Lester Beall, Sascha Maurer and Lucian Bernhard. Kauffer contributed two dramatically different posters to the project. One, which was awarded the Art Director's Club Prize, featured a clown's head (probably inspired by a poster he had just created for the Barnum & Bailey Circus) and the words "Subway posters perform daily before five million pairs of eyes." This, his other poster in the series, harks back to the artist's 1930s style, closely echoing a poster he designed in 1937 for the "Earl's Court Motor Show" (see Swann Modernist Poster Auction #1897, lot 64). In this cleaner, more mature example of his work, he replaces the arrow with a magnet, but basically maintains the same composition and triangular photomontage, which results in a tour-de-force design, even more powerful than the earlier, British image. IPA no. 458 p. 164.