PHILIP ZEC (1900-1983) LMS / BY NIGHT TRAIN TO SCOTLAND. 1932.
40x50 inches, 101 1/2x127 cm. McCorquodale & Co. Limited, Glasgow.
Condition B+: creases and abrasions in margins and image; sharp vertical fold; light staining in margins; pin holes at edges; reinforcement tape along edges on verso. Paper.
Russian born, Zec's family fled Tsarist Russia and settled in London prior to the First World War. "At the age of thirteen, he won a scholarship to St. Martin's School of Art, and upon graduating he joined Arks Publicity an advertising agency. He later set up his own commercial art studio working for agencies including J. Walter Thompson, when all his railway work was commissioned" (Furness vol. 7, p. 233). This exceptional nocturnal scene, with the engine's hot furnace illuminating the plume of smoke from its funnel beneath the glowing moon, is an outlier within Zec's oeuvre. The majority of his posters were done as propaganda during World War II in an entirely different style. rare.