Sep 26, 2024 - Sale 2679

Sale 2679 - Lot 109

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

RUSSELL PATTERSON (1893-1977)


A Map of New York. 1939.
Offset lithograph illustrated map. 56x70½ cm, 22x27¾ inches; R.H. Macy & Co., New York.

A map self-described as "A Chart neither too Literal nor too Emotional, shewing the city New York replete with the wondrous Spectacles, Mysteries, and Pastimes of the natives . . . Done in the year of the New York World's Fair - 1939." Patterson's design was published by Macy's department store, as a promotional keepsake for the 1939 World's Fair.

Patterson was a well-known illustrator, finding his stride when he moved back to the US from his studies in France, at the start of the Jazz Age. His pin-up-esque flappers graced the pages of College Humor magazine, and he was a succesful costume and set designer in Hollywood in the 1930s. This map design came out of his return to New York and collaboration with Macy's in the late '30s.Condition A-: minor abrasions and slight overpainting along vertical and horizontal folds; minor creases, abrasions and repaired tears in margins.