Seymour Chwast 1931 I, Claudius 1978 and The Sensational Houdini Water Torture Escape 1973 2 posters. Both approximateley 46 x 30 inches. Crafton Graphic Company. Condition varies, mostly A. Paper. Afounding member of the Push Pin Studio 1954, Chwast

Seymour Chwast 1931 I, Claudius 1978 and The Sensational Houdini Water Torture Escape 1973 2 posters. Both approximateley 46 x 30 inches. Crafton Graphic Company. Condition varies, mostly A. Paper. Afounding member of the Push Pin Studio 1954, Chwast worked with MiltonGlaser for two decades. Later, he teamed up with Herb Inbalin and AlanPeckolick and is still going strong, now at Push Pin Group. The scope of his work is as gigantic as it is varied; he has designed books, packaging, and posters as well as done illustration work for advertising, publishing, and major corporations. his work has even extended into the realm of animated film. Steve Heller encapsulated Chwast's style when he said that: "Although rooted in the decorative traditions of the nascent years of commercial art - notably Victorian,Art Nouveau, and Art Deco - his work is not a synthesis of the past and present, but an invention of the most original kind. Chwast's art was post-Modern before such a term was coined. And what makes the verybest of his art so striking - indeed identifiable - are the ideas thatserve as the foundation for his smallest illustration or largest poster-as a posterist, his output is certainly equal to his great predecessors Bernhard, Hohlwein, and Cassandre." For I, Claudius, a poster designed for a television drama on the life and very bloody times of the Roman emperor Claudius, Chwast creates a pastel, mosaic- like image of the emperor, a snake, and a spilled glass of wine which not so subtly suggests the other red substance so easily spilled. Printed in direct tones, the poster needed not less than fifteen colors in addition to a varnish! For the popular magician, Doug Henning, whose re-creation of Houdinis Water Torture Escape earned himfame in the 1970s, Chwast very appropriately designs a poster that is a modern update of the traditional Victorian magic poster, showing themagician in the middle of different tricks. ref. Seymour Chwast, The Left Handed Designer by Harry Abrams, Ny, 1985 - p. 18-19, no.2 & 3