Oct 21, 2008 - Sale 2158

Sale 2158 - Lot 209

Price Realized: $ 3,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(ADVERTISING)
New York City album containing 34 photographs of Kress Department Store's Fifth Avenue display windows, with seasonal promotions dedicated to Halloween and Christmas and thematic displays featuring jewelry, paintings, baby clothes, lipstick, nail polish, glassware, hosiery, medical supplies, chlorophyll, cherry pie, mince pie, and the always-desirable "sale special." Silver prints, 8x10 inches (20.3 x25.4 cm.) and the reverse, mounted (in corners) on recto only. Oblong folio, boards; ties. Circa 1954
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

A wonderful series of photographs, each one chock-a-block with consumer goods, recalling an era when "more is more" was a Madison Avenue merchandizing maxim. The photographs also reference high art concerns. For example, shop windows (i.e. glass) fascinated Marcel Duchamp, who was keen on exploring the complex relationship between the objects on display and their method of presentation to the viewer, who is reflected in the window. Duchamp prized the transgressive power of art and wrote of the spectator's desire to own the object. But, "When the pane is cut, regret follows."


Kress was known for their stores' fine architecture, particularly its Fifth Avenue location, which was designed by Seymour Burrell.