Month: March 2018

Emperor Jones Prints by Aaron Douglas Could Command $30,000 at Swann

Defiance, one of four prints from the Emperor Jones series by Aaron Douglas. It's from a small group of reprints done with the same wood blocks in 1972, almost 50 years after the originals.

What you see: Defiance, one of four prints from the Emperor Jones series by Aaron Douglas. It’s from a small group of reprints done with the same wood blocks in 1972, almost 50 years after the originals. Swann Auction Galleries estimates the set at $20,000 to $30,000.

Who was Aaron Douglas? He was a Kansas-born African-American painter, graphic artist, and muralist who was at the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African-American cultural talent that bloomed in the Harlem section of New York City in the 1920s. His illustrations for Alain Locke’s 1925 book, The New Negro: An Interpretation led to a series of commissions from figures who led the Harlem Renaissance. In 1944, Douglas founded the art department at Fisk University, a university in Nashville, Tennessee, and led it for 22 years. He died in 1979 at the age of 79.

Was Aaron Douglas known as a printmaker, or was this series based on the Eugene O’Neill play Emperor Jones a one-off? “He was not known as a printmaker, and they’re the only wood block prints I’m aware of off the top of my head,” says Nigel Freeman, director of Swann’s African-American fine art department. “It’s from his classic Harlem Renaissance period. It’s unclear when [the prints] were commissioned, but he was published in other magazines at the time. It’s not surprising that he was tapped to do an interpretation of Emperor Jones.”

Best as we can tell, a small but indeterminate number of Emperor Jones prints were made in 1926, and then three more sets of reprints–15, 15, and finally 20–were made in 1972, with Douglas assisted by printmaker Stephanie Pogue. Do we know why the printing was done that way? “The blocks were first carved in 1926. Pogue assisted Douglas at the end of his career. The blocks themselves did not change,” he says. “It’s not unusual for an artist who made prints in the 1920s not to do large numbered editions of prints. It’s not like a contemporary print that’s editioned and sold through a gallery. Later in Douglas’s life, people asked for his works, and he decided to reprint the wood blocks. Why there are three separate reprintings, I don’t know. Maybe they sold out and he did more.”

Are the 1926 prints and the 1972 prints consistent in quality? “If you have your choice, you always want earlier printings. But there are very few examples of Emperor Jones prints done in the 1920s,” he says, noting that the only early set of four that Freeman has seen appeared in a museum exhibition. “There’s not a significant difference in the way they look. They’re printed from the same blocks. There’s not really a significant quality difference. She helped him print a strong impression. They’re more or less the same.”

There might be as many as 100 sets of Emperor Jones prints out there, but the Swann lot notes describe them as scarce. What makes them scarce? Are most of them in museum collections? Were some sets lost? Are collectors just reluctant to let them go? “You just don’t see them coming to auction that often,” he says. “We’ve only had a set once before in my department , and we see a lot of work. They’re things you don’t see very often.”

What’s the auction record for a set of Emperor Jones prints, and what’s the auction record for anything by Aaron Douglas? The Emperor Jones record was set at Swann in October 2008 when a group sold for $22,800. Swann also handled an original 1926 gouache of an Emperor Jones image that sold for $90,000 against an estimate of $35,000 to $50,000 in February 2008. A smallish 1944 painting by Aaron Douglas, Building More Stately Mansions, holds the record for any Douglas work at auction. Swann sold it for $600,000 against an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000 in February 2008.

Why will these Emperor Jones prints stick in your memory? “It’s his classic Harlem Renaissance graphic style. This is the style everyone equates with Aaron Douglas. This is what people think of, what they associate with him the most,” he says. “This is a scarce opportunity to acquire an original work of art in that style. The reason Douglas had such success is he was a very talented graphic artist and designer who was able to synthesize the design ideas and the Art Deco style of the period and infuse it with a strong African-American voice. The black silhouette became about the black figure. He created a depiction of African-Americans that was modern and a celebration of African-American culture, which fit right into the idea of the Harlem Renaissance.”

How to bid: The group of Emperor Jones prints by Aaron Douglas is lot 7 in the African-American Fine Art sale at Swann Auction Galleries on April 5, 2018.

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SOLD! Batman’s 1939 Comic Book Debut Sold for Almost $570,000

A May 1939 copy of Detective Comics #27, which featured the debut of Batman. It has a Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) universal grade of 5.0.

Update: The May 1939 copy of Detective Comics #27, featuring the debut of Batman and holding a CGC universal grade of 5.0, sold for $569,273.61.

What you see: A May 1939 copy of Detective Comics #27, which featured the debut of Batman. It has a Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) universal grade of 5.0. Hake’s Americana & Collectibles estimates the comic book’s value in excess of $500,000.

How often do copies of Detective Comics #27 come to auction? “Not often. The caveat is this is universal grade. It’s in its original state–no restoration, no conservation. When you factor that in, it appears even less often,” says Alex Winter, President of Hake’s Americana & Collectibles. “Most copies are not in the original state.”

How many copies of Detective Comics #27 have a CGC grade higher than 5.0? “The CGC census has a total of 67 copies. Only 32 are universal. All the others have restoration,” he says. “Of the universals, there are 16 rated higher and 15 rated lower. 5.0 is mid-grade, but with the universal label, it’s a high grade. 5.0 is very acceptable for a book of this age with no restoration.” He also adds, “Batman is rarer as far as graded universal copies, and Batman is certainly more popular in movies than Superman. I think it’s only a matter of time before Detective Comics #27 eclipses Action Comics #1 [Superman’s debut]. It’s a rarer book.”

But we should say–not every copy of Detective Comics #27 is reflected the CGC census– just those that were sent to CGC for grading. “Yes, but CGC is the top of the mountain,” he says. “It’s the preferred grading company.”

Why are comic books that feature the debut of a major character the most sought-after by collectors? “For the same reason that rookie cards are popular,” he says. “People gravitate to where a star started. Typically, with the debut of a character, they don’t have established track record, so the print run is lower,” he says, noting, “Batman didn’t appear in Detective Comics #1. Whatever worked got its own book. When the popularity was there, Batman got his own title.”

Batman is on the cover of Detective Comics #27, which has a banner announcing that his adventures are “starting this issue.” Would the comic book’s value be affected if Batman was not on the cover? “Not much at all,” he says. “There are character debuts that are not touted on the cover. It certainly helps, but it doesn’t have any bearing. It’d still be the first appearance of Batman even if Batman wasn’t on the cover. And it wasn’t like he was on the cover of the next issue. The issue was created months ahead of its appearance on the newsstand. The creators would see if something worked, and then they’d take the next step.”

How rare is it to have a comic book consigned almost directly from the person who bought it off the rack as a little kid, decades ago? “Pretty rare. It didn’t come directly from that person. There was one middle-man in between. But it’s still fresh to market,” he says. “To have a new discovery like this is a rare opportunity. People are fairly excited about that.”

Is the original owner still alive? How old was he when he bought this comic book? Yes, he is, and we’re not sure. “He certainly was a child when the book came out,” he says. “Maybe he was 10 years old.”

Why does the comic book have a 5.0 rating from CGC? “It has cover blemishes,” he says, pointing out the fact that the original owner wrote “Vol. 3 No. 3” at the top of the cover. “There’s a split on the spine, some dust, some soiling, some age. It’s what you’d expect of a book that’s been read several times. But it wasn’t rolled up, and it wasn’t put in his back pocket. The colors are strong and bold, with no fading.”

How did you arrive at the presale estimate of “in excess of $500,000”? “We have set price ranges,” he says, referring to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. “But it’s very subjective, especially for a comic book that turns up as infrequently as this one. It’s a very, very volatile market when you have something like this, where there’s a lot of people lined up and not enough copies for those people.” This particular copy is the first Detective Comics #27 that Hake’s has handled in its 51 years of existence.

Why will this comic book stick in your memory? “Because it’s so historic,” Winter says. “This is right up there. It’s like a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card. It’s an iconic item that transcends collecting. It’s easily identifiable as a piece of pop culture, and you don’t have to be a comic book fan or a Batman fan to appreciate it. It’s rewarding to have a high-caliber piece like this, and it’s exciting that it’s fresh to market.”

How to bid: The copy of Detective Comics #27 is item 1152 in the Hake’s Americana & Collectibles sale that opens on February 20, 2018 and closes on March 15, 2018.

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

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Image is courtesy of Hake’s.

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SOLD! A Howard Cook Print of the Chrysler Building Commanded $10,625 at Swann Galleries

Chrysler Building, a 1930 print by Howard Cook.

Update: The Howard Cook print featuring the Chrysler Building sold for $10,625.

What you see: Chrysler Building, a print by Howard Cook. Swann estimates it at $10,000 to $15,000.

Who was Howard Cook? Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Cook created watercolors and WPA murals but is best known for his prints. He earned Guggenheim Fellowships twice, in 1932 and 1934, and his works are in the collections of the British Museum, the Smithsonian Art Museum, Harvard University, the Whitney, and the Met, among others. Though he was enamored of the American southwest and ultimately settled there, he spent the late 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. He died in 1980 at the age of 78.

How popular is Howard Cook among collectors, and how prolific was he? “He’s very popular. When it comes to those who collect 20th century prints and American views, he’s one of the top artists. That’s been true since American prints began to flourish at auction 25 years ago,” says Todd Weyman, vice president at Swann and director of prints and drawings. “He made over 225 different prints in all media–woodcuts, lithographs, etching. He was prolific compared to Grant Wood, who made 20 lithographs, and Edward Hopper, who made maybe 50 different etchings.”

How sought-after are Howard Cook’s New York images? “Very. They’re the top of his market,” he says. “His views are either panoramic views or singular buildings.”

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How does Howard Cook’s choice of subject matter–the Chrysler Building–affect the value of this print? “It’s great. It’s an iconic building. The print dates from the year of the completion of the building [1930]. It’s just what collectors want,” he says. “It’s from the Art Deco period, so it’s less static than the Empire State Building.”

Is Howard Cook’s Chrysler Building a stand-alone print, or is it part of a series? “Of the 225 images he printed in his career, he did 30 views of New York,” he says. “All were stand-alone. Cook was not a serial printmaker.”

What would he have based this print upon? Did Howard Cook take a photograph of the Chrysler Building from this angle? Did he stand on the street and make sketches? “We don’t know of him as a photographer,” he says. “My thinking is he sketched it in person, and he knew it from photographs. But he was not known for working from photographs.”

Is this Cook’s only depiction of the Chrysler Building? Yes. “He did other skyscrapers in New York more generally,” he says. “We have another one in the sale, the lot before this one, of Wall Street, and there are skyscrapers in it, but it’s not the sort of grand, isolated building view [like the Chrysler Building].”

How involved was he in the creation of his prints? Did he pull them himself, or did he oversee the work of professional printmakers? “Cook was very much involved in making his prints, from start to finish,” he says, noting that the only time he relied on others was when he created lithographs. “He would come up with the idea for the print, he etched it, and he pulled it on his own press.”

The lot notes for Howard Cook’s Chrysler Building say this was an ‘edition of 50 (from an intended edition of 75),’ and also that it is ‘numbered ’75’ in pencil.’ I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here. Could you explain? “When he worked on editions himself through his gallery, the Weyhe Gallery in New York, he would propose an edition number, and would print them in batches of maybe ten or 20 at a time and deliver them to be sold on his behalf,” he says. “Over a period of a couple of years, he was able to sell only so many. He never reached his printing goal of 75. We know this through the artist’s notes and gallery sales records.”

So what does the number ’75’ actually mean here? “That was what he hoped the edition would be,” he says. “These prints were not numbered in the traditional sense. He would intend for an overall edition at the start of the process and would deliver batches at a time to the gallery. It’s not like they were sequentially numbered. Chrysler Building was going to be an edition of 75 until he couldn’t sell more than 50 or so. We know it wasn’t 75.”

Sometimes, when there’s a large press run of an art print, the early ones look better and crisper than the later ones. Does the batch printing approach that Cook took with Chrysler Building affect the quality of the prints? Is their quality consistently high? “Each was printed more or less identically,” he says. “It’s not like number one is more or lesser than number twenty. Because they’re smaller editions, there’s such attention to detail and quality. He didn’t let anything of lesser quality out to the gallery.”

How often does Howard Cook’s Chrysler Building come to auction? “It’s a scarce one. We’ve seen less than ten at auction in the last 30 years,” he says, noting that the number might not represent ten individual prints–the same print could have gone to auction twice or more in that time. He adds that the auction record for Chrysler Building was set at Swann in November 2015 when one sold for $17,500, and four of Cook’s top ten most-expensive lots at auction have been Chrysler Building prints; first place belongs to a 1930 panoramic New York City scene called Harbor Skyline.

Was Chrysler Building a tricky print to make? “If you look at the imaging, look at the lines, they’re very detailed, almost hairline in the shadows,” he says. “That requires great attention to detail, and it [the ink] would have been hand-applied to the block. To have the blacks as rich as they are in the shadow areas, with no breaks or wear, is stunning. It looks like photographic perfection when you see it.”

What makes this print stick in your memory? “You can see the craft in it,” he says. “It has such a precision to it, on such a small scale–it’s only 10 1/8 inches by 6 3/4 inches–but he’s able to show the grandeur of the city. You really get the sense of a soaring city in such a small format.”

How to bid: Howard Cook’s Chrysler Building is lot 195 in Swann‘s 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings auction on March 13, 2018.

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

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Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

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SOLD! The 1964 Bride of Frankenstein French Re-release Movie Poster, Estimated at $300 to $500, Commanded $250

A French poster for the 1964 re-release of the 1935 classic horror movie Bride of Frankenstein

Update: The French movie poster for the 1964 re-release of Bride of Frankenstein sold for $250.

What you see: A French poster for the 1964 re-release of the 1935 classic horror movie Bride of Frankenstein. Julien’s Auctions estimates it at $300 to $500.

This Bride of Frankenstein poster was designed for the French market, and for a 1964 re-release of the film, which by then had a long reputation as a cinema classic. How does that affect the poster’s value? “Awareness of international designs is changing, and awareness of how scarce and rare they are is changing,” says consigner Neville Tuli, founder and chairman of the Osian group, which includes the Osianama Archives of world film memorabilia based in New Delhi, India. “I feel sad that the French design has not had its due. France is the home of posters. It’s difficult because the suppliers and distributors [of this re-release poster] didn’t keep archives in a historical manner.”

Some of the most expensive movie posters at auction have advertised 1930s horror movies. The world auction record belongs to a 1931 Dracula poster, sold in 2017 for more than $525,000, and 1930s horror movie posters have consistently fetched six-figure sums at auction. How might these strong sales influence the bidding for this Bride of Frankenstein 1964 French re-release poster? “Obviously, it will have a positive impact,” he says. “First releases of movie posters, you get them once in ten years, and they now sell for in excess of $300,000 and $400,000. Collectors are now looking for re-releases and posters from other countries.”

Why is this Bride of Frankenstein 1964 French re-release poster estimated at $300 to $500? “Everything is estimated very low, the way most auctions like to,” he says. “People like to think they’re getting a bargain. If it passes $3,000 to $4,000, that’s a fair price.”

Why are so many Bride of Frankenstein movie posters so visually strong? “The Bride of Frankenstein, even though she’s barely on the screen, captured the imagination of the world–the hairstyle, the whole look,” he says. “If you see post-1935 posters [for the movie], she’s given as much [visual] importance [as Frankenstein], sometimes even more. She has such a remarkable face. She naturally attracted the public when she appeared on publicity materials,” he says, noting that it was not just common but imperative for movie marketers to redesign and release new posters that capitalized on breakout stars. “If you see the original poster for Marilyn Monroe’s film, Asphalt Jungle,  she’s not there. [There are several poster designs for the 1950 film, and some show Monroe, but none showcase her.–Ed.] In the poster for the 1954 re-release, it’s all her. If the star captures the public’s imagination, they change the publicity material to give the star extra weight.”

Is there more than one version of this Bride of Frankenstein 1964 French re-release poster? “You always have four to six poster designs, but in this case, the main design is the same, and they just changed the color of the background,” he says. “I have another with a green background.”

How rare is this Bride of Frankenstein 1964 French re-release poster? “At auction, it rarely comes up,” he says. “For diehards who go searching [at public auction and in private sales], it comes up every six months. We’re talking about a handful.”

Was this poster on your shopping list for the Osianama Archives, or did it just pop up one day, and you grabbed it? “My shopping list is to build a history of world cinema,” he says. “My reasons for collecting are different from what collectors focus on. I’m building for a larger framework–India and the world, and India’s relationship to the world. I see the iconography [that Indian cultures] have created over 4,000 years, and it’s the greatest sci-fi and horror imagery you could imagine. I try to create understanding and show the links between Indian iconography and 100 years of cinema.”

Unlike earlier posters for the Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein and his bride are given the same visual weight here, and she seems to have a determined look on her face. Do you think that’s a deliberate statement by the designers, or is it just a matter of wanting to put a new spin on things? “Probably the story line got clearer by the 1960s,” he says. “Her scream led to his heartbreak, and the destruction of everything. I can’t say how the designers would have thought this up. I don’t know if it’s a feminine power statement or a statement of equality. But on the others, we don’t see the same equality. Here, they are equals on the poster. It’s open to conjecture.”

Why will this poster stick in your memory? “I have many different versions [of posters for the Bride of Frankenstein], and the French version has an austerity about it that’s unique,” he says. “So many versions of the Bride of Frankenstein show him carrying her in his arms, or show her in the laboratory. Here, there’s not much but magenta, black, and white. They pared it down to the essentials of the figures.”

Why are you selling this poster now? “Because I’m trying to become debt-free,” he says, laughing. “For 20 years, I tried to build a cultural network for the country without taking government funds or donations. I wanted to create it on its own terms. Financially, for the last five or six years, I’ve struggled with bank debt. I’m selling 500 pieces out of 200,000. I have to keep the integrity of everything else alive. I want to be debt-free. If I have to sell a few items to do that…”

You own an auction house. Why not use it to sell the 500 pieces? “There’s no interest in these things in India. The finest Indian movie poster can’t sell for $50 or $100,” he says. “We have a great love of cinema in India but not a great culture of cinema in India, and they are two different things.  It takes a long time for a cinematic culture to emerge, and it’s emerging, but there are so many steps and layers to creating it.”

How to bid: The La Fiancée de Frankenstein poster is lot 260 in the Osianama Archives auction scheduled for March 8, 2018 at Julien’s Auctions.

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

Julien’s Auctions is on Twitter and Instagram.

Julien’s is conducting a second, online-only auction from the Osianama Archives that concludes on March 19, 2018.

Image is courtesy of Julien’s Auctions.

Also see the website for Osianama, Tuli’s impressive, ambitious 18-year-old arts endeavor.

Would you like to hire Sheila Gibson Stoodley for writing or editing work? Click the word “Menu” at the upper right for contact details.

SOLD! A Jack Kerouac-Inscribed Copy of On the Road Fetched $7,500

Jack Kerouac. On the Road. New York The Viking Press, 1957 credit Herita...

Update: The 1957 presentation copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road sold for $7,500.

What you see: A 1957 presentation copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Heritage Auctions anticipates selling it for as much as $8,000.

Who was Jack Kerouac? Born Jean-Louis Kérouac in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, he became a star of the mid-20th century Beat Generation of poets and authors. On the Road, a fictionalized tale of the cross-country travels of himself and his friends, published in 1957, is widely regarded as his greatest, most influential work. Kerouac died in 1969 at the age of 47.

Do we know how big the press run was for the first edition of On the Road? “I can’t find any reliable information about this, just that Viking published an unknown number of hard-cover copies in dust jackets on September 5, 1957,” says James Gannon, director of rare books for Heritage Auctions. “It sold well enough that it required a second printing on September 20 and a third not long after that.” [This copy is from the second printing.]

Did Viking Press have any notion of what they had with On the Road? Was it like Ulysses, where there was some anticipation and awareness that the book might be great? “Some sections of On the Road were published in literary magazines, and were well received so that the publisher announced that the complete first edition book was ‘a publishing event of no small interest.’,” he says. “This was Kerouac’s second novel, but the literary approach was completely fresh and new.”

Do we know how many inscribed presentation copies of On the Road are out there, and how often they come to auction? “Kerouac is known not to have inscribed a lot of copies of this title,” he says. “I only note about eight or 10 copies through the auction rooms in the last 20 years or so, of course getting premium prices.”

The woman to whom this book is inscribed, Mimi, and her daughter, Francesca, are not characters in On the Road, but Lucien Carr, husband to Francesca and son-in-law to Mimi, is in the book [the character based on him is named Damion]. How does that affect this copy’s value? Are inscribed presentation copies of On the Road worth more if they are inscribed to people who appear in the book as fictionalized characters?  “I think this twice-removed relationship limits the importance and desirability of the inscribed copy,” he says. “It is still a great book, but would be a vastly different thing if it was inscribed to Lucien Carr himself.”

What is the auction record for a first edition copy of On the Road? Does it belong to an inscribed presentation copy? If so, to whom did Jack Kerouac sign it?  “Aside from the original scroll of On the Road, the highest price I saw for an inscribed first was to his paramour, Joyce Johnson, and included a drawing,” he says. “Joyce Johnson also inscribed the book. It sold for $185,000 in 2002. The lot also included an autograph letter from Kerouac, and an inscribed copy of Johnson’s book about her relationship with Kerouac.”

What is the estimate on this copy of On the Road, and could you talk about why bidding will open at $4,000?  “The estimate is $8,000, and we open bidding at half of the estimate,” he says. “We hope the estimate is conservative and the book will sell for more than $8,000.”

Could you talk about the condition of the presentation copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and its dust jacket? Does it have the wear that you’d expect of a book that’s about 60 years old? Or is it in better shape?  “The book is fairly nice, without major restoration which would really detract from the value,” he says. “A book like this, with a black dust jacket that shows flaws easily and is popular enough to be read over and over by various readers, typically shows much more wear. This is in better shape than what we see typically, but really nice copies in jacket are out there and get a premium price.”

Do collectors of first-edition Kerouac books, and early copies of On the Road, differ from book collectors in general? “Not in my experience, though sometimes a buyer of On the Road will be specifically a beat literature collector,” he says. “Usually this is included in collections of high-spot literature collectors, who want great books by a variety of modern writers.”

Why will this presentation copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road stick in your memory? “The Carr association, though a little removed, being inscribed to his mother-in-law, still adds a layer of interest that might encourage a bidder to go some extra increments, or a retail buyer to pay a little more,” Gannon says. “The ‘pride of ownership’ aspect is enhanced if you can share an interesting story when showing the book to friends and colleagues.”

How to bid: The 1957 presentation copy of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road is lot #45062 in Heritage Auctions‘ Rare Books Signature Auction on March 7, 2018.

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

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Image is courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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SOLD! This Trio of Mont Blanc Posters Fetched $13,750 at Swann

Vers le Mont - Blanc, a group of three posters dating from 1928 and designed by Georges Dorival.

Update: The 1928 trio of Mont Blanc posters sold for $13,750.

What you see: Vers le Mont – Blanc, a group of three posters dating from 1928 and designed by Georges Dorival. Swann Auction Galleries is offering them as a single lot, estimated at $8,000 to $12,000.

Who was Georges Dorival? Justin Marie Georges Dorival was born in Paris in 1879 and died in Louveciennes in 1968 and… that’s about all we know about him. “He was a very prolific artist who wasn’t remembered by history,” says Nicholas Lowry, director of Swann Auction Galleries. “The poster world is littered with artists who don’t amount to much outside their world.”

Was this trio of Mont Blanc posters his crowning achievement? “This is his most famous image,” he says. “If you type Dorival’s name into the search engine on the Swann web site, you’ll see his others are beautiful, but not remarkable in any way. These three are remarkable. What’s special and unique about this is it’s done as a tryptic.”

Do we know why Georges Dorival did Vers le Mont – Blanc as a tryptic? “I just think it was an inspired idea,” he says. “The three separate posters can work individually, or as a tryptic.”

Do I see the mountain depicted in daylight, dusk, and night? “Yes. It’s like a time-lapse, graphic photo,” he says. “One clearly has stars in the sky. Day, dusk, night. Everything below the black V of the mountain is identical. The top third changes.”

How often was this trio of Mont Blanc posters displayed together? “There’s no record of that. I’ve never seen any actual photo documentation of these three up,” he says. “I assume if they could put all three up together, they would, just because it makes a powerful statement.”

Does the trio of Mont Blanc posters tend to come to auction together as well? Generally, yes. Six sets have appeared at auction as a single lot since 2008; this will be the seventh. Sometimes, however, they appear in the same sale as three individual lots. Swann set the auction record for a set of three in November 2010 that sold as one lot for $18,000 against an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.

What makes the triplicate poster image so strong? “There’s a conceptual reason and an actual reason,” he says. “The actual reason is the way he lays out the art. It’s almost as if someone is unzipping the scene. Your eye is quite literally drawn to the center of the poster. It’s simple and it’s genius. And the concept of the same poster at different times of day–it’s astonishingly simple and had never been done before. In a way, it’s like watching the sun set over the mountains. Each of these is like a color still.”

The trio of Mont Blanc posters come from the estate of Gail Chisholm, a Manhattan poster dealer who died in 2017. Was she a friend? “I’ve known her since 1996. She had a gallery seven blocks away from Swann,” he says. “She was an early adopter in the world of posters, and she had a very European attitude. I knew I had to visit her between noon and three, when she’d be having her three-hour lunch. She became a friend and colleague. It’s a small community. We all know each other. … She was very creative. She knew how to market posters. I think I picked that up from her, too. She lived her life according to her own rules. She unabashedly did what she wanted.”

About 130 posters are in the Chisholm sale, and the proceeds will benefit Planned Parenthood of New York. What’s the total presale estimate? Between $166,000 and $241,000, so as much as a quarter-million dollars could go to Chisholm’s favorite charity thanks to this auction.

What else makes this trio of Georges Dorival posters stand out? “In the world of posters, which are, by definition, a visual medium, these stand out for their unique cinematic quality,” he says. “They’re strong individually and stronger as a tryptic. These are really outliers, so different from the rest of his work.”

How to bid: Dorival’s Vers le Mont – Blanc is lot 29 in the Vintage Posters sale that Swann Auction Galleries will hold on March 1.

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