?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
JOSEPH W. JICHA 13TH DECENT. 1926. 33 3/4x24 inches. Otis Litho, Cleveland. Condition B-: restored losses in corners; paper loss and restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; staining and abrasions in margins and image. A lithe, green reveller in a red mask and her brown partner are descending past orange and yellow shafts of light to advertise a costume ball. Colorful, bold and suggestive, this decadent Deco image provides a historical and artistic perspective on one of America's avant-garde art clubs in the 1920s. The Kokoon Club was founded in 1912 by young artists inspired by the dadaist movement and similar avant-garde organizations in Europe. According to papers kept in the Kent State University Library Special Collections, amounting to an archive of the club's activities from 1922-1935, the name Kokoon derives from "the lowly cocoon . . . foreruner of the beautiful butterfly in hope that from this small begining something of beauty should develop and emerge." Amongst the club members were Carl Moellmann, Morris Grossman, Elmer Brubeck, Henry Keller, August Biehle, Joseph Jicha and Rolf Stoll. The yearly costume balls were originally intended as fundraising events, but turned into "notorious events that kept the Kokoon Club in the spotlight well into the 1930s." Each poster also served as an invitation to the event; this one was sent to Mr. Kelley.
