Apr 24 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2702 -

Sale 2702 - Lot 58

Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000

R & B STUDIOS (PIETER IRWIN BROWN, 1903-1988 & RALPH RICKMAN)

THE QUICK STARTING PAIR / SHELL OIL & SHELL PETROL. 1928.

30x44¾ inches, 76¼x113½ cm. Waterlow & Sons, Ltd., Dunstable & Watford.
Condition A-: minor repaired tears and restoration at edges; minor creases and restoration along vertical folds.

Already established as the world's leading oil company by the late 1920s, Shell Oil's advertising began to shift from consumer product education to a strategy of brand recognition and efficacy. This elegant Art Deco poster was part of the Quick-Starting Pair series that ran from 1926 to 1932, employing animals as visual metaphors of the speed and power achieved by using Shell's petrol and oil. The images used in the series ranged from the artistic and modern to the traditional and natural. "In the 1920s and 1930s the attributes of nature deployed by Shell were organized along an axis of difference . . . by reference to a much used set of opposing terms: natural, artificial; nature, technology; country, city; leisure, work; constancy, change" (Hewitt, p. 129). Through its sleek line work, bold typography and striking color palette, this abstract rendition of hood ornaments taking flight and simplified gas pumps combines technology and art in a stylized addition to this series. Brown and Ralph also designed modernist posters for the London Tramways.
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