?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
ALEXEY BRODOVITCH (1898-1971) & LILLIAN BASSMAN (1917- ) THIS IS THE ENEMY. Circa 1943. 34 1/4x25 1/8 inches. Condition B+: creases and water stains in margins and image; minor loss in margins. Gouache and photographic elements on board. Brodovitch was a key figure in the development of 20th century graphic design. He emigrated to Paris from Russia and it was there that he became one of the most successful designers of the glorious French Art Deco period, winning 5 medals at the 1925 Arts Decoratifs Exhibition. He worked for such prestigious clients like the luxury-good store Modelois and the restaurant Prunier (see Swann Modernist Poster Auction #1970, lot 25). When he moved to New York, in the early 1930s, he became the legendary art director for Harper's BazaarM> where he hired A. M. Cassandre (as well as other top European designers like Man Ray and Herbert Bayer) to design covers. He was also responsible for nurturing and developing young American talents such as Richard Avedon. When Brodovitch met Lillian Bassman in 1940, he was impressed enough with her fashion illustrations to get her a scholarship at New York's New School, in the department of Graphic Design. A year later he hired her as his assistant at Harper's Bazaar, which was the start of one of the great success stories in the word of fashion photography. From Brodovitch's assistant, Bassman went on to become editor of Junior Bazaar and then a major fashion photographer in her own right, who has been celebrated with solo exhibitions all over the world. This large maquette was never realized as a poster. In 1943 the U.S. Government released a poster entitled "This is the Enemy", which pictured an arm, with a swastika on its sleeve, thrusting a dagger through a bible. Most likely this image would have been submitted for the campaign (on the back of the image are the two designer's names and addresses), and was likely never chosen due to its disturbing imagery. It is a sophisticated and very modernist photo-montage, whose geometric background and typography, placed dynamically on an angle, both bespeak a familiarity with European avant-garde design. The violent, almost gruesome nature of the image is very much in keeping with posters from the Spanish Civil War. The fact that Brodovitch had it co-signed by Bassman amply proves the respect and admiration he had for his young assistant.
