?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
LESTER BEALL (1903-1969)
CROSS OUT SLUMS / UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY. 1941.
39 3/4x29 1/2 inches, 101x75 cm. U.S. Government Printing Office, [Washington, D.C.] Condition A / A-: small tears and abrasions at edges; minor creases along unobtrusive horizontal fold; pencil notations at bottom edge. Paper.
In the 1930s, Beall produced a series of silkscreen posters for the Rural Electrification Administration. Here, for the United States Housing Authority, in a continuation of his earlier series, Beall provides a powerful visual rejection of Depression Era / Dustbowl shanties in favor of larger, newer residences. One of a series of progressively designed posters produced by Beall for the U.S. Government, featuring photomontage, sans-serif lettering and other recognizable elements of European design, which began filtering into America before the war. Lester Beall was "able to bring the clean asymmetry of Bauhaus design into everyday life in this country long before Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe were given an opportunity to do so in architecture" (Word & Image p. 62). Word & Image p. 86, Mechanical Age pl. 74.
