PIERRE FIX-MASSEAU (1905-1994) LE MONT ST. MICHEL. 1937.
40x24 1/4 inches, 110 1/2x61 1/2 cm. Edita, Paris.
Condition B+: minor repaired tears in margins; minor loss in lower right corner; minor creases in margins and image; light stains 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 to develop 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. One of his few travel posters, 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 poster Rhode Island 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. This scarce poster has only come up for auction at Swann once in the past 20 years. Chemins de Fer 106, Fix-Masseau p. 11 (var).