36 3/4x23 3/4 inches, 93 1/4x60 1/4 cm. Tipografia D.D., Zagreb. Condition A-: minor creases and slight offsetting in margins and image; slight foxing in margins; minor restoration in lower text.
Founded in 1927, Aeroput was the national airline of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Here, a de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth monoplane flies through a daytime sky, while on the opposite side of the poster a train travels along the same route by night. The message, and the effect, is literally "Earth roads are tiring, air ways are resting." In other words, spend a comfortable day traveling by air, and not an uncomfortable night, or longer, traveling by train. The call numbers on the side of the aircraft UN SAA indicate that it was introduced into the Aeroput fleet in 1931. The small plane could sit three people and was used as an air taxi. "Hans Wagula gave up painting as a profession about 1924 and devoted himself exclusively to advertising art and to the poster in particular . . . Today [he is] not only the best-known poster artist in the Ostmark, he is also the most notable exponent of that pure and classic German poster style which finds characteristic expression in simplicity, clarity and monumentality of form and which alone does justice to the nature of the work in hand" (Gebrauchsgraphik 1941, vol 11, p. 7 & 16). "His brilliantly composed landscape-placards are evidence of a carefully considered command of space that becomes almost a law in itself, as also of a special preference for strong, unbroken, yet always delicately intershading colors, whose delightful power of brightness rejoices the beholder's eye without ever offending his harmonious color-sensitivity" (ibid, 1936 vol 4, p. 3). This is the Serbian version. Crouse p. 25.
