Oct 02, 2003 - Sale 1978

Sale 1978 - Lot 6

Price Realized: $ 13,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
NORD EXPRESS. 1927.
411/2x291/2 inches. Hachard, Paris.
Condition A-: minor repaired tears and creases in bottom corners; repaired tear through bottom margin affecting text.
Nord Express was the second poster Cassandre was commissioned to design for the Chemin de fer du Nord railway in 1927. This stylized locomotive is a graphic glorification of the Machine Age and is rendered in architecturally precise geometric shapes and white lines. The design is made even more impressive by its perspective: seen from track level, the locomotive appears all the more massive and powerful, its great speed emphasized by the dramatic way that it disappears into the horizon (a horizon ingeniously brought even closer by the telegraph wires, which also quickly disappear). An airbrush is cleverly used to create what Henri Mouron, Cassandre's son, refers to as an "authentic poetry of space." Repeating a design choice from the Etoile du Nord, Cassandre has again arranged the typography around the outside of the poster so as not to interfere with the image. One of the most enduring Art Deco icons. Mouron / Cassandre pl. 10, Weill / Cassandre pl. 13, Suntory 49, p. 73, Reina Sophia p. 159.