?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954) MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 1923. 38x23 1/4 inches, 96 1/2x59 cm. Vincent Brooks, Day & Son Ltd, Condition B+: repaired tears, creases and abrasions in margins and image; restored losses along right edge. Kauffer returned to London after a trip to the United States in 1922 and began work on a series of posters for the Underground advertising London's most prominent museums. By 1926 he had designed ten different images, advertising the Victoria & Albert, The Natural History Museum, The Indian Museum, The British Museum, The Museum of Science, The Imperial War Museum, The Royal United Service Museum and The Museum of Practical Geology. "Kauffer often argued that non-representational and geometrical pattern designs 'can effect a sledge hammer glow if handled by a sensitive designer possessing a knowledge of the action of color on the average man or woman'" (www.aiga.org). Here, the rainbow color sequence, and the undulating, rhythmic background patterns serve to transfix the viewer. "It was Kauffer's mastery of synthesis-wedding abstract, dynamic form to everyday products that made him invaluable in the promotion of commercial enterprise . . . he wanted to encourage people to simply be aware of a product or message by piquing their aesthetic sensitivities. Kauffer's strategy was consistent with the Modern ideal that art and industry were not mutually exclusive" (ibid). Kauffer 24, Underground p. 48.
