?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
KARL SCHULPIG (1884-1948)
W. HOFFMANN PIANOS. 1912.
27x18 1/4 inches, 68 1/2x46 1/4 cm. Adolf Simmel, Berlin. Condition B+: creases in image; margins slightly trimmed. Mounted on Chartex.
A painter and a poster designer, Schulpig was very active in Berlin. In 1905, when Lucian Bernhard invented the Object Poster, with his seminal image for Priester matches, he could not have foreseen how much his new style would influence an entire generation of poster artists. Bernhard's poster for Steinway & Sons, in 1910 (see Swann Sale 2099, Lot 103), was a pure manifestation of this new style; a flat representation of the object, huge lettering and a monochromatic background. Schulpig's cleanly-executed image can certainly be considered a "tribute" to Bernhard, neatly recreating the feeling of the poster, albeit with slightly more detail to the piano and more text. Schulpig was not the only artist to find "inspiration" in Bernhard's piano imagery, as Julius Gipkens borrowed liberally from the style for his poster for Pianos Steck (see DFP-III 1044). Not in DFP, Muller-Brockman 131, Miroir 73.
