May 12, 2008 - Sale 2145

Sale 2145 - Lot 180

Price Realized: $ 5,040
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
ORSI (1889-1947) LAMPE FLOURESCENTE / PHILIPS.
62x46 inches, 157 1/2x116 1/2 cm. Bedos & Cie., Paris.
Condition A-: repaired tears and creases in margins and image; minor scratches and abrasions in image.
The expansive Bénézit Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, writes of Orsi that "his name should have an important place in the history of posters on behalf of his innovative aesthetics." Bénézit goes on to praise Orsi's sense of simplification, his bright colors and his creative ideas. Bénézit estimates that Orsi designed as many as 1000 posters! Despite this prodigious output nothing else has been written on the artist and no portrait of him exists. Philips was one of his primary clients and here, the pointillist effect he creates to advertise a fluorescent light bulb is a classic example of the extent of his talent. The diagonal of the bulb itself, the unique handling of the coloring, the typography and the overall feeling of fluorescence make this an exceptional image.