?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
PAUL PROEHL (1887-1965) THE BEAUTIFUL MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST / ILLINOIS CENTRAL. 41 3/4x28 inches, 106x71 cm. Magill-Weinsheimer Co., Chicago. Condition A- / B+: minor repaired tears at edges, some slightly into image; minor creases in margins and image. Proehl, trained as an architect, became a prominent illustrator and advertising artist. This is one in a series of stylish posters he created for the Illinois Central Railroad, all of which featured prominent, beautiful young women. Writing about another image in the series, also starring a fetching young golfer, Proehl said, "This poster, like many American posters, began with a double problem: to picture a striking, characteristic scene, and to present a considerable amount of information. As the Mississippi Gulf Coast . . . depends for its patronage on its invigorating combination of sunshine and light breezes, ideal for outdoor sports at all seasons, rather than on grandeur of scenery or unusual beauty, it was necessary to show human action as well as landscape. With the problems this defined, the poster began to arrange itself. A figure in motion, clothes blown by sea breezes, set against a Gulf Coast scene bathed in sunlight, with the essential information arranged in small blocks, words grouped for quick, almost unconscious reading, and used somewhat as a border. Due to the simplicity of this arrangement, the copy could be assimilated at a quick glance, yet the attention value of the figure was not sacrificed" (Richmond p. 83).
