?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER AMERICAN AIRLINES / CALIFORNIA. Circa 1947. 40x30 1/4 inches. Condition B+: overpainting, restored losses, repaired tears and restoration in margins. Born in Montana, Kauffer lived and worked in England for much of his life. He left England twice, once in 1921 and then again in 1940, as a result of World War II. On both occasions he returned to America where he never quite felt at home. One of his last advertising campaigns was for American Airlines. "In 1947 Kauffer was discovered by Bernard Waldman, a young New York advertising man who wanted to bring the European poster tradition to America. He commissioned Kauffer to do a series for American Airlines." (Steven Heller, The Essential Modernist). Perhaps the rarest of Kauffer's America-era posters, this elegantly simple photomontage is unrecorded and has never before appeared at auction. From the two-toned typography, to the larger-than-life beach ball and the suggestion of waves and shadows in the sand, this image clearly reflects Kauffer's avant-garde design sensibility, and is one of his finest designs from this period.
