Oct 02, 2003 - Sale 1978

Sale 1978 - Lot 18

Price Realized: $ 2,300
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
LYS CHANTILLY. 1930.
39x241/2 inches. L. Danel, Lille.
Condition A: minor creases in margins.
This is one of the most daring of Cassandre's posters, bordering on abstraction. The Lys Chantilly was a large real estate project in the Chantilly forest North of Paris. One must assume that the railroad company was somehow involved in the project, which would explain their commission of this poster. As early as 1925, Roger Broders designed a poster promoting the area, using his classic illustrative style. Cassandre takes an opposite graphic approach. The poster is a massive splash of green, a near impenetrable forest, where, through an opening in the "leaves," one can view a tri-color cubist abstraction of a house. With no details about prices, availability, or anything else, the approach is completely symbolic. The text, of which there are several variants, here mentions getting to the area via S.T.A.R.N, the bus service operated by the Chemins de fer du Nord. The poster is rather unique within Cassandre's oeuvre in that it is more like an oil painting than a graphic design. Mouron / Cassandre 109, p. 67, Suntory 59, p. 83, Reina Sophia p. 163.