?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
EMIL CARDINAUX (1877-1936) MARTINI / AUTOMOBILES. 1916. 49 1/2x35 inches., 126 x 89 cm. J.E. Wolfensberger, Zurich. Condition B / B+: restored losses in bottom margin; repaired tears in text; wrinkles and creases in image. Framed. Cardinaux studied painting with Germany's Von Stuck, and also worked in Paris before returning to Switzerland, where he became one of the founding fathers of Swiss poster art. In 1908, his poster for Zermatt, with its flat colors and broad outlining was a revolution in the Swiss graphic art world. And in 1914, he designed a fauvist image of a yellow horseman astride a green horse to promote a Swiss Exhibition. This image, which proved to be scandalous, as it was on such a patriotic subject that the normally passive Swiss surprised everyone by rallying against it). This is a rare poster by Cardinaux, who is primarily known for his Swiss tourism posters. Car posters were certainly not his specialty, but this commission gave him the opportunity to place an automobile within a dramatic and picturesque mountain setting. Cardinaux uses hand-drawn typography to symbolize speed. Cardinaux 48, Margadant 239, Plakat Schweiz, p 31, Khachadourian, p 15.
