Feb 24, 2022 - Sale 2596

Sale 2596 - Lot 146

Price Realized: $ 2,080
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

FRANZ GRIESSLER (1897-?)

COTTAGE - BAR / IM TÜRKENSCHANZPARK. Circa 1920s.


37 1/4x24 3/4 inches, 94 1/2x62 3/4 cm. Paul Gerin, Vienna.
Condition A-: minor repaired tears and restoration are vertical and horizontal folds; small replaced loss in upper right corner.

Franz Griessler studied painting in Vienna and designed his first poster after World War I. He opened a design studio in partnership with Gewista, a large outdoor advertising agency, for which he produced a number of successful campaigns. For unexplained reasons he left Austria in 1947 and is believed to have died in Honolulu in the 1970s. Curiously, different cities developed radically different approaches towards cabaret posters. Parisian cabarets are portrayed as being lighthearted and joyful. Nightclubs in Berlin are depicted in a rougher, and far less humorous manner. And cabaret advertising in Vienna and Munich took an intriguingly decadent slant. This poster echoes the spirit of Walter Schnackenberg, king of the decadent cabaret posters. It depicts a strange, almost clownish character, leering over the shoulder of a young lady, who, on the contrary, has a simple and charming appearance. Engulfed in a voluminous fur stole, her arm cleverly splits the image in half, and an oversized cocktail glass completes the composition.