?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
ALEXEY BRODOVITCH (1898-1971) PRUNIER. Two maquettes. 1924. Each approximately 81/2x113/4 inches. Matted and framed. Condition varies, generally A. Paper. Initialed and dated by the artist in pencil. 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 first distinguished himself as a graphic designer, winning 5 medals at the 1925 Arts Decoratifs Exhibition. When he moved to New York, he became the legendary art director for Harper's Bazaar 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. While still in Paris he developed a prestigious list of clients, including Les Trois Quartiers, a department store, and Arts et Metiers Graphiques, a leading graphic arts magazine. He also worked for the Barnagaud family who ruled a seafood empire in the food industry, as they owned two restaurants (one in Paris and one in London). Today their flagship restaurant on Avenue Victor Hugo remains a landmark of Art-Deco design made of marble, precious stone and sculpted glass. Brodovitch designed a graphic look for the restaurant, including the menus and punched copper signs that hung above the counters. These two drawings for caviar demonstrate Brodovitch's simple genius, one showing an open tin with black eggs, the other a sturgeon. A variant of the latter still hangs in the restaurant, now a caviar house owned by Pierre Berge, the French Tycoon and former owner of Yves St. Laurent. Two masterpieces of the period. Brodovitch, p. 26 (var).
