?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
FRED LUDEKENS (1900-1982)
THE SALAD BOWL / SOUTHERN PACIFIC. 1930.
23x16 inches, 58 1/2x40 3/4 cm. Condition B+ / A-: slight foxing in margins and text; minor creases and abrasions in margins and image. Paper.
In addition to changing the way Americans traveled, the railways also affected the way America ate. It was the Southern Pacific Railroad that originated the "salad bowl" in the late 1920s, a "help yourself, all-you-could-eat" scenario, in their dining cars. The railroad promoted this feature ubiquitously in magazine advertisements, on matchbooks and even on extraneous cards (substitute jokers) in decks of Southern Pacific playing cards, but this is the only poster to boast of this historic culinary innovation. Train buffs will also appreciate the detail of the colorful hues of the table cloth, a feature on Southern Pacific trains such as the Sunset Limited. Ludekens was a prominent California illustrator who was the art director at Lord and Thomas, the firm which handled Southern Pacific's advertising. He designed a number of posters for the railroad.
