What you see: La Place de Calvi. Corse, a 1928 poster by Roger Broders, touting Calvi Beach on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Swann Auction Galleries estimates it at $8,000 to $12,000.
The expert: Nicholas Lowry, director of Swann Galleries.
Where was Roger Broders in his career in 1928? Let me give you a little background first. In 2011, we were very lucky at Swann to hold a sale called The Complete Poster Works of Roger Broders–every poster he ever designed. We have handled all his material at the same time. We’re in a good position to have an overview. We arranged the catalog in chronological order, first to last, and we had 100 lots in the auction. This poster was number 49, so, midway in his output, if not his actual career. He was at a stage when his figures take on a lithe, elongated look.
Was this his first poster for this client? Oh, no. PLM was his major client, his primary client. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of his posters were done for them.
A railway company commissioned this poster from Roger Broders, but there’s no train in it. Why would a railroad want a travel poster that didn’t show a railroad? The railway teamed up with ferry services. You would have booked the ferry through the train company–it was a PLM ticket. PLM was like a travel agency, in that way. This [Corsica] was along their extended route.
What makes this Roger Broders Corsica image a strong poster design? I see a bright patch of orange in the middle–a beautiful, brightly colored, artistically decorated wrap. If I was passing by this, I would stop because I saw a flash of orange. Then I’d see the pretty lady. The composition is fantastic. The curve of the shore is a Broders design motif. Her body cuts right through it. It’s very eye-catching. And at the time, people wouldn’t have thought this, but it’s an incredible Art Deco image. This is archetypal Art Deco. The coastline is sweeping, the cape is moving, the waves are lapping at the shore.
Was it unusual for Roger Broders to place a woman front-and-center, as he does here? Lot 72 is the same woman seen from the back. There are a handful of other posters where he has figures taking the central place.
I went back and forth between those two Roger Broders posters, lot 71 and lot 72, and settled on this one because I recognized the woman’s feet and legs. They look like the feet and legs of Venus in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. It’s almost as if he traced them. I don’t see anything mentioned in the lot notes, though. Is Broders quoting that painting? The tilt of her head is similar, and the elongated neck is similar. There’s no way it’s a coincidence. It’s too accurate. 100 percent, this is a nod to Birth of Venus.
And the Birth of Venus is, technically, a beach scene… It gets better and better. If you look at the bottom of the poster, there are two figures on the left of the woman and one on the right. That’s also like the painting. The figure on the right in the painting is about to shroud Venus with a cloak. In the poster, the woman has a wrap. There’s not a lot of info on Broders, but the Birth of Venus is in Florence, and he did a poster for Florence in 1921. And that’s his style–the elongated style appears in other posters.
Was it typical for Roger Broders to quote paintings in his posters? Off the top of my head, I’ve never seen a pose in his posters that made me think he was copying an Old Master.
How many of these 1928 Roger Broders Corsica posters have you handled, and what is the auction record? It’s not rare, but it’s not common. At least 23 have been auctioned since 1988. We have had it three times. The first time was in 2011. The auction record is $16,800, set at Poster Auctions International in February 2018.
Where does this Corsica poster rank among Broders’s poster designs? Certainly in the top 10 and probably in the top five. Now I’m biased, knowing it was based on the Birth of Venus. I thought it was a great poster before you said that. Now it’s like, wow. It’s because of the composition, the color, the style, and the attitude it broadcasts–summer laziness, aristocratic decadence. It’s certainly how high society lives. There’s no question this is an elegant lady.
What else do you like about this Roger Broders Corsica poster? He has made the landscape realistic. It’s Calvi Beach in Corsica, and it wraps around Corsica. That sweep is not an exaggeration. He has accurately represented the surroundings. It’s a tribute to the level of detail he put into his work. Some posters are really supposed to represent an attitude. This is about a destination, too. Lot 72, the woman with her arms to the sun–that doesn’t tell you anything about where you’re going. There’s a beach, but it’s not the same level as this.
How to bid: The Roger Broders 1928 Calvi Beach poster is lot 71 in the Rare & Important Travel Posters sale at Swann Auction Galleries on October 25, 2018.
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Nicholas Lowry has appeared several times on The Hot Bid. Read past entries in which he talks about Swann setting the world auction record for any travel poster, a 1938 London Transport poster by Man Ray that ultimately sold for $149,000, a trio of Mont Blanc posters from 1928, a mid-1930s German travel poster featuring the Hindenburg, a 1968 MoMA poster by Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo, an I Want You 1917 World War I recruiting poster that introduced the modern concept of Uncle Sam, and an Alphonse Mucha poster featuring Sarah Bernhardt.
Are you a professional art historian? Here’s the full Swann Auction Galleries catalogue for The Complete Poster Works of Roger Broders. Can you find more instances of Broders quoting a work of art? If you do, tweet it to @SGSwritereditor, @SwannGalleries, and @NichoLowry, along with a WikiCommons image of the work the poster is emulating.
Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.
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