?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
LILI RETHI (1896-1969)
POST OFFICE UNDERGROUND MAIL TRAIN: LONDON. Circa 1935.
40 1/4x50 inches, 102 1/4x127 cm. GPO, London. Condition B+ / A-: repaired tears and expert overpainting in margins; small pencil number 301 in lower left margin.
Raised in Vienna, Rethi became a skilled illustrator of industrial subjects. Her enthusiastic admiration for the Machine Age caught the eye of the Nazi Party, which tried to enlist her artistry to serve their propaganda needs. She fled to New York in 1939, stopping in London on the way. While there, she is known to have designed two posters, this one, and another for the LMS. The six and a half mile underground mail route in London went into service in 1927 and remained in use through 2003.
