LESTER BEALL (1903-1969) HEAT - COLD / RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION. Circa 1937. 39x30 1/4 inches. Condition B+: repaired tears in margins; restoration and minor abrasions in image. Silk-screen. We are proud to be able to offer another in the incredibly rare and important series of Rural Electrification Administration posters designed by Beall (see Modernist Posters sale 1897, lot 75). In the 1930s, after a traditional education in Chicago, Lester Beall became interested in avant-garde typography and in the design elements of the Bauhaus. In 1937 he was the first American designer to have a one man show at the Museum of Modern Art, and in the same year was one of the first designers commissioned by the U.S. Government to help promote the Rural Electrification Administration. The posters he created in this series for the R.E.A. (including Wash Day, Running Water, Radio, Farm Work and Light) pitched basic, modern amenities to the hinter lands of America, where many such "luxuries" were virtually unknown. The R.E.A. existed not only to help rural America enter into the modern age but also served to create jobs for a Depression-ravaged country. Elevating visual communication to an extremely efficient level, Beall's style involves a technique close to the ideogram, employing basic, clear and direct images, free from any exterior influences that would lessen the pure message. At a time when the majority of the American populace was largely illiterate, Beall's simple silk-screen, in patriotic red, white and blue, amply conveys the message of heating homes through electricity, including a powerful effect of having the wires running from pole to pole, diagonally across the image, evoking the sense of vastness in the American heartland. ref: Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age,<> Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, 1998, p.155, The Modern American Poster<>, The National Museum Of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1983, p. 38-39.
