HERNANDO G. VILLA (1881-1952)

CHICAGO WORLD'S FAIR / CENTURY OF PROGRESS. 1933.

42x28 1/4 inches, 106 1/2x71 3/4 cm. Newman-Monroe Co., Chicago.
Condition A-: expertly-repaired tears in margins; minor creases in margins and along unobtrusive vertical and horizontal folds.

For the World's Fair in Chicago, Villa presents an unusual allegorical image of the Santa Fe Railroad "serving up Chicago on a silver tray." A previously unexplored possibility is that the poster may have originally been designed to advertise the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, for which a figure with a laurel wreath would have been much more appropriate. Villa did in fact design a Santa Fe poster for the Olympics that year, featuring American Indians, with no clear visual connection to the games themselves. According to the Library of Congress Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Villa copyrighted this Chicago poster in 1931. This early date suggests that he may well have designed two images for the Olympics. When the railroad chose the other image, Villa allotted this design for another upcoming project: the Chicago World's Fair. This poster was re-issued in 1934 bearing the new date and slightly more text. Rare.