?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954) TO VISIT BRITAIN'S LANDMARKS / YOU CAN BE SURE OF SHELL / DINTON ABBEY. 1936. 29 3/4x45 inches, 75 1/2x114 1/4 cm. Condition B+: repaired tears and creases at edges; minor abrasions and errant mark in image. Edward McKnight Kauffer was a multi-talented artist, whose work as a graphic designer, illustrator, painter and decorator was all exceptional. He was born in Montana, studied art in both Chicago and Paris and then moved to London in 1915. He returned to his native America in 1940, but his 25 years in Britain (the most creative of his career) produced a prodigious output of work including posters that, alongside those of A.M. Cassandre, would become the best of the period. In contrast to Cassandre, who gave up graphic design for painting, Kauffer practiced both his whole life. He exhibited gouaches and watercolors in London in 1931 and 1933. When Jack Beddington commissioned Kauffer to design posters for Shell, he asked the artist for both his hard-edge graphic designs as well as his scenic, countryside ones. Dinton Castle is one of the most humorous and playful images Kauffer delivered for Shell. On a large easel, Kauffer uncovers the landscape painting he has just finished. His palette, which bears his signature, is still leaning against the work. Shell 60, Kauffer p. 132.
