ADOLFO HOHENSTEIN (1854-1928) IRIS. 1898. 1081/2x371/4 inches. G. Ricordi, Milan. Condition B: restored losses and overpainting in image; repaired tears and restoration in margins and image. Two sheets. Hohenstein spent his whole career with Ricordi the great Italian publishing company. He began working there in 1889 designing sheet music covers for operas. Shortly thereafter he became art director of the firm and began to design posters. He had a large influence on the young artists who joined the studio (Metlicovitz, Dudovitch, Capiello, Laskoff, and others) many of whom went on to great renown. After work in the early 1890s, which clearly shows the influence of Jules Cheret, Hohenstein's work, incorporating elements of Mucha's art, began to find its own flamboyant style. This poster, for an obscure opera by Mascagni, is a masterpiece. The simple premise of a woman draped in a loose-fitting robe with a gossamer scarf, surrounded by irises immediately brings to mind similar work by Alphonse Mucha, but the comparison ends with the similarity of the subject matter. Hohenstein brings movement, flashing colors and a more evocative atmosphere to this work-using a palette never seen in Mucha's work, and using light in a very dramatic, almost theatrical manner. The poster is an exceptionally spectacular, and well constructed image-from the brilliant typographic handling of the poster's title to the well-utilized elongated format, which helps build an ascendant composition. Very rare. Maitres pl 180, Weill p. 85 no. 138, Manifesti p. 29.
