A Private Australian Collection Forms Core of Swann Galleries’ October Auction of Travel Posters
NEW YORK—On Tuesday, October 14, Swann Galleries will offer one of the most diverse and visually stimulating Travel Posters sales the auction house has ever held. Highlights from a private Australian collection form the core of the sale, with many images that have never before come up for auction in the United States.
Naturally, there is a fine selection of Australian tourism posters including nine by the incomparable Gert Sellheim, such as the Cubist-inspired Sunshine And Surf / Australia, circa 1936 (estimate: $6,000 to $9,000) and By Train For Seaside Holidays! 1936 ($4,000 to $6,000); 12 by Percy Trompf, among them The Seaside Calls, circa 1935 and an image showing construction of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, Still Building / Australia, 1930 ($5,000 to $7,500 each); and nine of James Northfield’s classic images, including fishermen reeling in a big catch in Australia / Great Barrier Coral Reef, circa 1935 ($6,000 to $9,000) and the cute and cuddly Australia /Koala (Native Bear), 1931 ($2,500 to $3,500).
British Rail posters are also well represented, including several masterful quad royal (40 by 50 inch horizontal format) images such as two seasonal Fortunino Matania posters for the seaside resort town of Southport from 1925, one featuring fashionable swimsuit-clad bathers, the other elegant patrons outside a theater wrapped in gowns and furs ($7,000 to $10,000 each); H.G. Gawthorn’s Art Deco image for scenic Clacton-On-Sea, 1926 ($3,000 to $4,000); Laura Knight’s playful The Yorkshire Coast, 1929 ($4,000 to $6,000); two rare posters by John Littlejohns: Felixstowe, circa 1933 and Whitley Bay, 1929 ($3,000 to $4,000 each); Jean Droit’s An East Coast Tonic, circa 1930 ($4,000 to $6,000) and images by Austin Cooper, Septimus Scott and others.
Among designs by celebrated French travel poster artist Roger Broders are his only poster for the Chemin de Fer du Nord, with a couple on their yacht pulling into the busy port of Dunkerque, circa 1930 ($15,000 to $20,000); his stylized Marseille Porte De L'afrique Du Nord, 1929 and one of his scarcest skiing posters, Winter Sports in the Vosges, circa 1930 (both $6,000 to $9,000).
American works of note include John Held, Jr.’s charming It’s Vacation Time in the Berkshires, 1926 ($3,000 to $4,000) and Eastern Canada and Newfoundland Are Calling, 1926 ($2,000 to $3,000); Bern Hill’s powerful locomotive images from the 1950s, such as Fast Freight Service in the Great Midwest, ($2,000 to $3,000) and St. Louis to Chicago on the “Blue Bird,” ($1,500 to $2,000); Sam Hyde Harris’s Southern Pacific’s New Daylight, 1937 ($3,000 to $4,000) and two of his maquettes for other Southern Pacific posters; Dorothy Waugh’s posters for the National Parks, and images by David Klein and Sascha Maurer.
The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 14.
The posters will be on public exhibition Thursday, October 9 and Friday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, October 11, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Monday, October 13, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday, October 14, from 10 a.m. to noon.
A full-color illustrated auction catalogue is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, and may be viewed online at www.swanngalleries.com.
For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Nicholas Lowry at (212) 254-4710 ext. 53, or via e-mail at posters@swanngalleries.com.
Live online bidding is also available via invaluable.com.
