NEW YORK – Swann Galleries’ sale of Rare & Important Travel Posters on Thursday, Oct. 15, can be described as celebrating “America the Beautiful” as a vast segment of the sale features posters showcasing premier destinations around the U.S. Also on offer is a top selection of international images, from London to Latvia, Bangkok and beyond. Bid absentee or live online through LiveAuctioneers.
New York City is on display with Chesley Bonestell’s New York Central Building / At the Gateway to a Continent, circa 1929 (below; $6,000-$9,000); a rare first printing of David Klein’s 1956 TWA poster featuring a vibrant abstract view of Times Square ($5,000-$7,500); and Joseph Feher’s ad for United Air Lines, in which a Douglas DC-6 can be seen flying over Central Park with the Plaza Hotel in the background ($1,500-$2,000).
East Coast summer destinations are among notable American travel posters. Highlights include a circa-1929 image for travel to Montauk Beach (below; $10,000-$15,000); John Held Jr.’s bird’s-eye view of Nantucket, a 1925 image that has not been at auction since 2006, ($6,000-$9,000); travel to Atlantic City by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, represented by Edward M. Eggleston’s circa-1935 advertisement showcasing the beach and boardwalk ($5,000-$7,500); Walter L. Greene’s lush image of the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Placid ($4,000-$6,000); and Anthony Hansen’s New England / America’s Historic Summerland, circa 1930s ($1,000-$1,500).
Notable West Coast lots include Jon O. Brubaker’s 1925 California / America’s Vacation Land – the second ad ever issued for the New York Central Line ($8,000-$12,000) and Jo Mora’s 1927 pictorial map California / The El Dorado, offered at Swann in the rare first state ($1,200-$1,800). Early air travel to and from San Francisco can be seen with Paul George Lawler’s 1939 Pan Am ad for travel to Hawaii via the Honolulu Clipper ($10,000-$15,000), and a circa-1950s TWA poster with a view of Presidio Avenue and a Market Street cable car running down California Street through Chinatown toward the Ferry Terminal, with a tower of the Oakland Bay Bridge appearing in the distance ($1,200-$1,800). Also of note is a previously unrecorded poster for the Northern Pacific Railway from 1920, featuring Lewis and Clark by Seaverns W. Hilton ($5,000-$7,500); and two 1928 Southern Pacific Railway designs by Maurice Logan, one featuring Lake Tahoe ($1,200-$1,800), and the other showcasing redwoods ($2,500-$3,500).
Other American highlights include Hernando Villa’s poster for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, which has not been seen on the auction block stateside in nearly 10 years ($4,000-$6,000), as well as Villa’s 1931 The Chief is Still Chief poster for the Santa Fe Railroad ($5,000-$7,500).
Celebrated images from Continental Europe, the United Kingdom and more include a poster promoting early aviation in the south of France, with Charles Leone Brosse’s Meeting d’Aviation / Nice, 1910 ($10,000-$15,000); a graphic representation of one of the most famous mountains in the Alps in Emil Cardinaux’s Zermatt, 1908 ($6,000-$9,000), as well as Cardinaux’s Winter in der Schweiz, 1921 ($12,000-$18,000); and a truly exceptional Art Deco gem for travel to the Seaside of Riga in Latvia-the Baltic Coast, circa 1930 ($1,200-$1,800). An Art Deco design for the London Underground is seen in Jean Dupas’s Where is the Bower Beside the Silver Thames?, 1930 ($15,000-$20,000). Scotland can be seen in a circa-1910 Caledonian Railway advertisement promoting the golf courses served by the line ($5,000-$7,500). A scarce, atmospheric view of the temples of Bangkok is displayed in Michael Rudolf Wening’s Siam, circa 1920s ($2,000-$3,000), and a Gatsby-esque evocation of holiday makers in Jasper, in the Canadian Rockies by Fred Powis complete the offering ($2,000-$3,000).
Additional advertisements for rail lines, ocean liners and aviation round out the sale.
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