?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
HANS RUDI ERDT (1883-1918) PROBLEM CIGARETTES. 1912. 26 5/8x36 7/8 inches. Hollerbaum & Schmidt. Condition B+: repaired tears, overpainting, creases and discoloration in margins and image. Framed. Hans Rudi Erdt was one of the most prolific poster artists in Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. He worked with the "dream team" of designers at the printer Hollerbaum & Schmidt, which consisted of Lucian Bernhard, Julius Klinger and Julius Gipkens. He produced posters for a wide variety of clients and his designs, punctuated by flat colors and strong outlines, reflect his talent as a draftsman, along with a great sense of stylization and a flair for layout. Cigarette companies were a major client of outdoor advertisers during this heyday of German poster art prior to World War One, and Erdt did work for many of them (including Manoli, Dubec and Englehardt). Here, despite the product's hilariously inappropriate name, Erdt depicts a very elegant couple luxuriously and flirtatiously enveloped in the smoke from a cigarette. DFP III 824, Rademacher p. 76.
