Swann's Travel Posters Auction Sets 8 Records
New York - Poster lovers from far and wide came to Swann Auction Galleries on Thursday, October 25, sale of Rare & Important Travel Posters, setting eight records with bidding driven by eager collectors both in the room and on the phones.
The top lots of the sale were Emil Cardinaux’s snowy image for a winter getaway in St. Moritz and Philip Zec’s poster for travel to Scotland by night train, each reaching $17,500.
Numerous records were realized in the sale for both artists and individual works. W. Smithson Broadhead’s Sea Breezes and Sunshine at Lytham St. Annes, circa 1930, set a record for the artist with $8,125. Further records for sporting and leisure posters include the circa 1925 Gleneagles / The Tennis Girl by Septimus Edwin Scott advertising the Gleneagles hotel and golf resort, which reached $8,750.
Records for travel posters advertising American destinations include Adolph Treidler’s New York / The Wonder City of the World, 1927, with $13,750-double the previous record for the image-and Sascha Maurer’s Atlantic City / Pennsylvania Railroad, circa 1940, with $6,500.
Additional records were set by The Belgian Coast, 1934, by Jean Droit with $7,000. Savoy Hotel / St. Moritz, a lively dining scene by Karl Bickel brought $6,750. Farman / ?cole de Pilotage, a circa 1920 aviation poster The Farman Aviation Works set a record for the image with $6,500 and Alexander Zhitomirsky’s Georgian Military Highway, 1939, reached $5,720.
Beach posters by Roger Broders proved popular, led by two posters featuring sun-worshiping women: Sur la Côte d’Azur, circa 1920, sold for $8,125 and La Plage de Calvi. Corse, 1928, reached $7,500.
Nicholas Lowry, President and Director of Vintage Posters at Swann, noted of the sale, “Collectors dominated the highly curated sale, generating over half a dozen record prices for posters. Many of which haven’t been seen on the market for years. It is always heartening when exciting and rare pieces sell well.
The next auction of Vintage Posters at Swann Galleries will be held in February 2019.
