A. M. CASSANDRE (ADOLPHE MOURON, 1901-1968) CHEMIN DE FER DU NORD. 1929. 39 1/8x24 1/4 inches, 100x62 cm. L. Danel, Lille. Condition B+: restoration and repaired tears in margins and corners; minor creases in image. When Cassandre began designing posters for the Chemins de fer du Nord in 1927, he also redesigned the cover of the Railroad Company's magazine. That design, which was reused for every issue, features a compass needle that appears very similar to this poster (see Swann Modernist Poster Auction #1935 lot 37). In 1929, Cassandre combines some of the key graphic conceits of his two earlier posters (the fading perspective formed by the converging rails and telegraph lines and the star balancing on the rails themselves) with a compass needle. The graphic rendering of the needle and its shadow are extremely elaborate, with sophisticated airbrush work. Not only do the blue sky and smattering of clouds help the needle to stand out, but the large black "N" of the compass reinforces the "Nord" in the poster's title. "A good example of [Cassandre's] ideographic approach . . . [this poster] derives its emotional strength from the ambiguous relationship between two superimposed images: the unexpected confrontation between the emphatically objective treatment of the compass needle, which seems to be resting on the surface of the poster, and the vastly poetic image of the tracks viewed through the graphically rendered compass dial. So explicit is this image that the cloudlike word Nord seems mainly to serve as a link between the two orders of reality" (Mouron p. 74). Mouron / Cassandre pl. 16, Suntory 52 p. 76, Reina Sophia p. 167.
