?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
OTIS SHEPARD (1894-1969) RAILS TO SALES/SUBWAY POSTERS. Circa 1947. 45x293/4 inches. Condition A-: minor repaired tears and restoration in margins; pinholes in corners. The life of Otis Shepard was one long, successful exercise in modern advertising. His career began in 1917 with the Foster and Kleiser Outdoor Advertising Company in San Francisco. By 1927 he was in charge of America's "first, full-scale outdoor poster art department, and a few years later he became the chief creative director for the entire F&K organization" (Strauss p. 68) Here, Shepard represents a subway tunnel in a very Deco style, with one rail in classic Cassandre-esque perspective hurtling down a tunnel towards brightly colored, squares and rectangles, representing impossible-to-miss subway advertisements. A perfect rendering of the concept "rails to sale," and very rare. International Poster Annual 1948/1948 p. 167 no. 466, Le Coultre p. 324.
