May 21, 2009 - Sale 2181

Sale 2181 - Lot 49

Price Realized: $ 4,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
ANDRE GIRARD (1901-1968) EXPOSITION INTERNATIONALE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS ET INDUSTRIELS MODERNES. 1925.
38 1/8x24 1/2 inches, 97x62 cm. Les Editions de l'Image de France.
Condition B+ / A-: minor restoration at edges and along vertical and horizontal folds.
This is by far the rarest of the four posters that were commissioned for the seminal Exposition Internationale de Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Similar in its use of smoking chimneys to the poster designed by Charles Loupot for the same exhibition, Girard's image has a much stronger and more dynamic layout. The smokestacks rise in a pyramid that visually echoes the seething mass of men who are scrambling to get to the top of their own pyramid. At the pinnacle one man holds aloft a chalice, perhaps meant to indicate a form of perfection that all are striving for. As with the other three posters designed for the exhibition, colors are kept to a minimum. Girard was commissioned to design this poster based on the renown he achieved through his posters for Peugeot, Duco (paints), the Theatre des Champs Elysees and Columbia Records, for whom, he designed numerous posters as well as the first illustrated record sleeves in France. Girard np.