?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
PAOLO FREDERICO GARETTO (1903-1991) BP ETHYL. 1934. 29x44 3/4 inches. Condition A-: repaired tears in margins. Garetto was primarily a political cartoonist who became an international artistic star in the 1920s. By the end of that decade, he was traveling so much that he would spend three days a week in Paris and the other four in London. He also received large commissions from American magazines like Vanity Fair, and began spending three or four months every year in the States. Through his travels he met many clients, both in advertising and in show business. Among the media giants for whom he worked in New York were J. Walter Thompson, N.Y. Ayer and McCann Ericsson. During time spent in England, he worked for major clients like British Petroleum. He had obviously seen McKnight-Kauffer's 1933 poster for the company (see Swann Modernist Poster sale #1970 lot 66), and gives Kauffer a friendly wink with this design which employs many of the same elements. On a dark background the words BP ETHYL slope in a very modernist way and the bold lettering is reinforced by sophisticated, air-brushed shadowing. Where Kauffer used a photograph of a man and a horse, Garetto employs a fluid drawing, which he executes in his elegant style. As a continuation of the campaign started by Kauffer, it is the perfect image.
