?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
PIERRE FIX-MASSEAU (1905-1994)
LE MONT ST. MICHEL. 1937.
39 1/2x24 1/4 inches, 100 1/4x61 1/2 cm. Edita, Paris. Condition B+: repaired tears at edges and in image; horizontal creases in image.
Pierre Fix-Masseau was the son of French sculptor Pierre Félix Masseau, and a student of A.M. Cassandre. Fix-Masseau gleaned some of the Art Deco influences of Cassandre, especially in his portrayals of locomotives and automobiles, and adapted these elements into his own style of poster design. In this image of Mont St. Michel, the artist departs from geometric train posters like his iconic Exactitude, and utilizes the diagonal of the seagull to add movement and drama to an otherwise serene setting. This piece features the landscape of Mont St. Michel, the proclaimed "Wonder of the West," floating in the center of the poster, mirrored by its reflection in the bay. While the trope of a flying seagull as a design element in travel posters pre-dates this poster, Fix-Masseau clearly created an iconic image worthy of imitation; in Ben Nason's Rhode Island poster for the New Haven Railroad circa 1945, a nearly identical seagull cuts across the uncannily similar backdrop of a towering church steeple. In 1950, Roger Couillard created a poster White Empress to Europe, featuring a gull clearly influenced by Fix-Masseau's bird. Chemins de Fer 106, Fix-Masseau p. 11 (var).
