A number of posters in our upcoming single-owner sale of Highlights from the Gooding Family Collection of Posters are images that we have never seen before, others haven’t been on the market for many, many years, and others are so scarce that while I am fully aware of their existence through having seen them in books, I have never had the privilege of handling them myself.

The Kokoon Arts Klub

(left) Joseph Jicha, Eleventh Annual Bal – Masque / Kokoon Art Club, 1924. Estimate $2,000 to $3,000; (center) Joseph Jicha, The Kokoon Arts Klub / 13th Descent, 1926. Estimate $2,000 to $3,000; (right) James Halley Minter, Kokoon Artists Present / Bal Papillon, 1931. Estimate $2,000 to $3,00.

These incredible posters for the Kokoon Club were an absolute eye-opener to me when we first encountered one and included it in one of our poster sales in 2004, followed by a few others in 2005. Twenty years ago, these were as staggeringly unexpected as they remain today. Even after the Cleveland Public Library’s Fine Arts and Special Collections organized an exhibition and printed a catalogue in 2011, Out of the Kokoon [using several images taken from the Swann archive], these images remain a rare, sought-after visual and historical delight!  Since 2004, Swann has brought 11 different posters from this exceptional series to market. They are still as electric to me as they were when I first saw them.

Travel Posters

One of the things I am proudest of from my tenure as head of Swann’s Vintage Poster department is establishing a distinct auction every year to focus on Travel Posters. Historically, travel posters had always been underappreciated by the market, frequently overlooked in favor of their more artistic cousins by famous artists such as Alphonse Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Paul George Lawler, San Francisco – Hawaii Overnight! / Via Pan American – To the Orient, 1939. Estimate $12,000 to $18,000.

Designer Unknown, Caribbean / Pan American, circa 1960s. Estimate $1,500 to $2,000.

We began holding dedicated travel poster auctions in 1999, and they have been a mainstay of the Swann auction schedule ever since, every autumn season. Through our diligent research, we have managed to bring a couple of absolutely extraordinary images to a place in the market where they compete financially with some of the biggest names in the poster design world. Specifically, two rare, early aviation posters for Pan Am, both by Paul George Lawler.

Pan Am / Fly to South Sea Isles, truly, this may be one of the more recognizable images in the American travel poster canon. It regularly appears on the cover of books, as illustrations in articles, and stands as a benchmark image for the golden age of air travel and the exotic South Sea Isles. We first had this poster in 2008, the version without text.

A second poser, by the same artist which exists in two different text variations,  “Hawaii Overnight” and “Hawaii by Flying Clipper” we first offered for sale in 2000. Back then the poster was attributed to Frank McKintosh (the poster is unsigned and McKintosh was known to have designed menu covers for the Matson Line cruises to Hawaii. It wasn’t until someone found a Pan Am brochure with the same image as this poster, bearing Lawler’s signature, that authorship could be concretely identified.

The poster for Pan Am service to the Caribbean is a superb example of how corporate design changed over the years. Designed in 1969, this cheeky image is sleek, colorful and sexy. You can even consider the sunglasses being held by the attractive beachgoer to be winking at the viewer, cleverly incorporating the Pan AM logo into the work (wink-wink, nudge-nudge). The only time we have ever offered this poster before—in fact, the only time I have ever seen it—was in 2003, when it graced the rear cover of our yearly travel poster catalogue.

Ski Posters

The upcoming auction also features two of the most wonderful, rare and important ski posters. Abel Faivre’s Sports d’Hiver Chamonix, 1905, is a poster we haven’t had for sale since 2006. It is a wonderful image from the early days of skiing (this is often considered to be the earliest European Ski Poster) in which a woman, in the most improbable ski outfit, is making her way down the mountain using just one ski pole, as was common in the earliest days of the sport. It glamorizes this new sport so well that it may well have set the entire stage for active, fashionable tourism. The condition of this particular poster in the sale is so good, and the colors are so fresh, that when I first saw it I was amazed at the pink highlights in the clouds and in the snow, because I had never seen a version with these colors intact!

(left) Abel Faivre, Sports d’Hiver Chamonix, 1905. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000; (right) Francisco Tamagno, Chamonix Mont-Blanc, 1910. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.

Also included is Francisco Tamagno’s Chamonix Mont Blanc, 1910. This dynamic early ski image of a couple ski jumping in tandem has a permanent place in the imagination of anyone who has studied the history of skiing. We also have only offered it once before, in 2006!

Automobile Posters

Nicholas D. Lowry with F. Hugo d’Alési, Les Automobiles Clément, circa 1905. Estimate $2,000 to $3,000.

I also have to express surprise with Hugo d’Alesi’s poster for Clement Automobiles. For years and years, I have told people that nothing beats seeing posters in person, rather than in printed catalogs or online. In this case, having been working from the collection’s spreadsheet before everything arrived at Swann, I was enamored with this poster by a famous artist, best known for his tourist posters. When we finally opened the tube, I was truly flabbergasted at the size of the image. We have never handled this poster before, and I, while I am familiar with the image from around the market, never realized how big it was.

Paul Colin, La Revue Nègre au Music Hall des Champs – Élysées, 1925. Estimate $30,000 to $40,000.

Finally, this auction contains one of the most famous posters of the twentieth century. A poster which, by all modern standards, is racist and pejorative and quite difficult to tolerate, let alone appreciate, when viewed through our contemporary eyes. And yet, this poster by Paul Colin advertising Josephine Baker’s very first performance in France in 1925 was a sensation in its own era and helped launch the career of one of the most famous performers in history. It is considered a triumph of Art Deco design and is a landmark of twentieth-century popular culture and design.

I am eagerly awaiting the next 30 years. And hope they will be filled with as much wonderment, surprise, knowledge and beauty as I have experienced so far.