PIERRE FIX-MASSEAU (1905-1994) ETAT / LE RÉSEAU DE LA MER. 1935. 39 1/2x24 3/4 inches, 100 1/4x63 cm. Edita, Paris. Condition A-: minor restoration and creases in image; pin holes in corners and margins. Framed. Pierre Fix-Masseau was the son of French sculptor Pierre Félix Masseau. As a young man in the late 1920s, he worked as an assistant in Cassandre's studio. He was greatly influenced by Cassandre's style and technique which is evident in much of his work. He continued working through the 1980s, when he designed a series of posters for the Venice-Simplon Orient Express. Here, he employs photomontage combined with colorful graphics and dynamic typography to promote the Chemins de fer de L'Etat and the routes to the beaches of France. Much in the way Fix-Masseau used graphic shorthand to depict the clouds in the sky, so does he use a typographic shorthand in referring to the railroad simply as "Etat."
