?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 70,000 - $ 100,000
ADOLPHE MOURON CASSANDRE (1901-1968) L.M.S. / BEST WAY. 1928. 41 1/2x50 inches, 105 1/2x127 cm. M.C. Corquodale & Co. Limited, London. Condition B+ / B: repaired tears through bottom and right margins, extending into image; restored pin holes in corners; minor loss and restoration at edges; abrasions and minor restoration in image. Mounted to thick paper. Initialed and numbered 41/50 in pencil by the artist. "In terms of its image and the energy it connotes, L.M.S. Bestway is Cassandre's most powerful poster" (Brown & Reinhold p. 14). In 1927, Cassandre painted an image very similar to this one for the Nord Express railway, who actually ended up rejecting the design. In 1928, Cassandre designed his first poster for the British railway line, LMS. He followed that poster with this one, a reconfiguration of his earlier painting. Printed in England, the poster conforms to the standard, quad royal, measurements for British Railway posters of the time. However, By all accounts, this poster was not used commercially as only 50 copies were printed. "By changing to the unusual nearly square format, he evokes a feeling of vertical and horizontal compression of energy about to be unleashed . . . [by] creating an artful cacophony of light, shading, and geometric forms, he is able to emphasize the kinetic and dynamic aspects of a train in motion" (ibid). "It is a superb Cubistic painting . . . the vermilion aura around the two driving wheels evokes both speed and the flames that used to roar in the bowels of the old steam engines" (Mourn p. 61). Mouron pl. 15, Brown & Reinhold cover and 13, Cassandre / Weill p. 17, Cassandre / Suntory 50, Cassandre / Tokyo 24, Art Deco Graphics p. 38, Weill 342, Avant-Garde p. 159, Art Deco Graphics p. 80, Modern Poster 156.
