May 23, 2019 - Sale 2510

Sale 2510 - Lot 135

Price Realized: $ 6,760
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954) AEROSHELL / LUBRICATING OIL. 1932.
29 3/4x44 inches, 75 1/2x111 3/4 cm. Chorley & Pickersgill Ltd., Leeds.
Condition A-: repaired tears and restoration in upper text; minor repaired tears and creases at edges.
Throughout the 1930s, Kauffer enjoyed a long, fruitful and creative relationship with B.P. Shell and the company's director of publicity, Jack Beddington. Depending on the type of campaign, Kauffer would alter his style from the most rigorous geometrism to soft poetical illustration. This image is somewhere in between. It is a strong graphic construction, with the suggestion of a racecourse in the curvy lines which connects the text. The typography itself is strictly geometric, but the car, on the contrary, is treated in a softer manner, with the illusion of speed created through the shadowy images behind it. Kauffer 105, Shell 35, The Poster 222, Car Posters p. 186, MoMA 376.1937.