Aug 05, 2021 - Sale 2577

Sale 2577 - Lot 274

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

WILLIAM P. WELSH (1889-1984)

SPEED TO WINTER PLAYGROUNDS IN PULLMAN. 1935.


27x20 1/4 inches, 68 1/2x51 1/2 cm. Charles Daniel Frey Company, Chicago.
Condition B: overpainting in left image; expert overpainting in left margin; creases, abrasions and restoration in margins and image; small abrasions at bottom edge.

"Between 1935 and 1938, Pullman vice-president James Kelly, who had long been fascinated by European travel posters, commissioned nearly a dozen poster designs by Chicago artist William P. Welsh . . . Welsh had studied at the Academie Julian in Paris and had made a name for himself painting the mural decorations in the Chicago Room of that city's famed Palmer House . . . [for this series] he bathed his subjects in brilliant color and rendered their surroundings in Art Deco-styled patterns" (Zega p. 109). Most of the images in the series depicted beautiful women engaged in leisurely activities against a geometrically-rendered, nature-inspired background. Zega p. 109, Affiche Art Deco p. 98, Art Directors Annual, January 1, 1936 p. 105.