?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954)
BP ETHYL / ANTI - KNOCK. 1933.
30x44¾ inches, 76¼x113½ cm. Condition B: replaced left margin; repaired tear at left edge, into central image; repaired tears, small replaced losses, creases and abrasions in margins and image.
In 1928 Jack Boddington was appointed Publicity Manager of Shell, becoming Director of Publicity for Shell Mex-B.P. in 1932 when the two companies decided to merge their distribution in the U.K. Like Frank Pick (the London Underground) and Stephen Tallents (The Empire Marketing Board), Boddington would elevate Shell's advertising campaigns to a superior level of quality. Kauffer, who became one of his close friends, was regularly commissioned to design posters for the oil company. For this striking, symbolic, graphic allegory Kauffer combines photography and typography, organizing the image around an inclined rectangle, delineated by the brand name and its qualities, against a black background. An electric flash of lightning cuts the poster in half, symbolizing the power the fluid has on engines, while a photo integrated on the right shows a statue of a rearing horse to literally evoke the "horse power." Rare.
MoMA 374.1937, Weill, p. 236, no. 418. Kauffer pl. 42.
