?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
ADOLPHE MOURON CASSANDRE (1901-1968)
L'OISEAU BLEU. 1929.
39 1/4x24 1/4 inches, 99 1/2x61 1/2 cm. L. Danel, Lille. Condition A-: minor repaired tears at edges, one through upper border; minor creases in margins and image; linen trimmed to poster at bottom. Framed.
For L'Oiseau Bleu, a Pullman overnight car on the Chemins de Fer du Nord, Cassandre creates a more metaphorical image than usual - not so much rendering a Machine Age image of the mode of transportation, but rather, suggesting it poetically. The signal and telegraph wires visible in the center of the image are the only indication that the poster is advertising train travel. "In a highly effective metaphor for speed, a ["blue bird," the namesake of the train] is substituted for the express train hurtling past at full steam" (Mouron p. 64). The combination of the telegraph wires, the perspective of the sign, the incline of the typography and the direction of the bird all lead the viewer's eye toward a fixed vanishing point beyond the poster. Mouron pl. 18, Brown & Reinhold 20, Cassandre / Tokyo 34, Cassandre / Suntory 56, p. 80, Reina Sofia p. 164, Cassandre / Weill p. 31, Travelling in Luxury p. 225, Affiches Chemin de Fer p. 164, Chemins de Fer 122.
