Nov 19, 2015 - Sale 2399

Sale 2399 - Lot 203

Price Realized: $ 5,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
DESIGNER UNKNOWN CALIFORNIA / THIS SUMMER. Circa 1933.
41x26 3/4 inches, 104 1/2x68 cm. Newman-Monroe Co., Chicago.
Condition B+ / B: restoration and overpainting along sharp creases and repaired tears in image; expertly-restored loss along bottom margin.
"Travel by Train" was a campaign with "inter-modal competitive sales appeal" (Zega p. 63) adapted by many American train companies in the 1930s, as widespread use of the automobile began to cut directly into ticket sales. "Their cooperative effort produced nearly a dozen posters portraying a range of national destinations" (Zega p. 109), on each of which the individual railroads succumbed to the larger good and replaced their individual company names with just the single, new slogan. "The idealized landscape of Southern California is strongly featured in this poster. A fair-skinned woman in a chic, sleeveless patterned dress soaks up some sun as she sits beside a palm tree looking out upon golf links, a sailboat in the bay and Spanish Revival buildings. In the distance snow peaked mountains crown a vast expanse of green hills" (Southern California 9).