?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
RALPH PRINS (1926-2015) TRIENNIALE DI MILANO. 1957. 39 1/4x27 1/4 inches, 99 3/4x69 1/4 cm. Condition B+: creases and abrasions in margins and image; pin holes in corners; reinforcement tape on verso along left edge; hand-signed by the artist in pencil. Silkscreen. Paper. Ralph Prins lived in Amsterdam during WWII, and was sent through three internment camps before he, his mother and grandmother were finally traded as prisoners of war and transported to Zürich. He attended art classes there at the Kunstgewerbeschule before returning to The Netherlands and continuing his studies in typography and art at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. While he started out as a draftsman making cartoons and illustrations for newspapers, he is best known for his moving war memorials, two of which were dedicated at camps that he himself had been sent to. Eventually, Prins worked as a freelance artist focusing on graphic design for several companies including Olivetti, before teaching at several prestigious art academies in the 1960s and 1970s. His education in Switzerland and The Netherlands exposed him to the disseminated influences of the Bauhaus school of design, which had spread and developed throughout Europe since its closure in 1933. This spatially-focused geometric minimalism is apparent in his work here, where he utilizes purposeful placement of object, text and color to create this cohesive design for the eleventh International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts and Architecture at the Italian design museum, La Triennale di Milano.
