Five Schools, Built to Deepen
The Shallow Shelf
Vienna, Italy, Britain, the Bauhaus, Mexico — a first shelf, not a last word.
1897–1930
Five schools held at 6–10 pieces each at launch, each with its own room to grow: Vienna Secession (Klimt’s first Secession poster, 1898; Koloman Moser), Italy’s Ricordi house (Hohenstein’s Tosca, 1899; pre-1931 Dudovich), Britain’s pre-1931 Underground and railway posters (the TfL roundel flagged as a live trademark on relevant pieces), the Bauhaus (1919–1930; Joost Schmidt’s 1923 exhibition poster), and Mexico’s Posada broadsides and calaveras.
Why this school is here
Vienna Secession
Austria · 1897–1918
Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s U.S.-seller public-domain framework.
The Ricordi House
Italy · 1895–1930
Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s framework; only pre-1931 Dudovich is included.
Underground & Railway Posters
Britain · 1908–1930
Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s framework; the TfL roundel is a live trademark, flagged per piece.
The Bauhaus
Germany · 1919–1930
Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s U.S.-seller public-domain framework.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Germany & Austria · 1905–1930
German and Austrian commercial poster art before 1931 — the Sachplakat "object poster" (Hohlwein, Bernhard), Munich and Berlin advertising, and the Wiener Werkstätte’s commercial work. Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s U.S.-seller framework.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Mexico · 1888–1913
José Guadalupe Posada died in 1913 — his broadsides clear well within the pre-1931 rule.
Collections
Klimt’s First Secession Poster
Vienna Secession
Klimt’s 1898 exhibition poster (note the censored Theseus) and Koloman Moser.
1897–1918 · Austria · Vienna
Italy
The Ricordi House
Hohenstein’s Tosca (1899) and pre-1931 Dudovich.
1895–1930 · Italy · Milan
Britain
Underground & Railway
Pre-1931 Underground and railway posters.
1908–1930 · Britain
1919–1930
The Bauhaus
Joost Schmidt’s 1923 exhibition poster.
1919–1930 · Germany
Germany & Austria
Plakat — the Object Poster
The object, the word, and nothing else — the German Sachplakat and the Viennese commercial hand.
1905–1930 · Germany · Austria
Mexico
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
José Guadalupe Posada’s broadsides and calaveras.
1888–1913 · Mexico
In the wing
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Vienna Secession
First Vienna Secession Exhibition Poster — Gustav Klimt, 1898
Theseus and the Minotaur, once censored, now the movement’s founding image.
Vienna Secession
Vienna Secession Exhibition Poster (XIII) — Koloman Moser, 1902
The Secession’s other founding hand.
Vienna Secession
Fifth Vienna Secession Exhibition Poster — Koloman Moser, 1899
Moser’s earlier turn at the Secession’s own advertising.
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The Ricordi House
Tosca — Adolfo Hohenstein, 1899
The opera poster that sold Puccini to the street.
The Ricordi House
Madama Butterfly — Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1904
Cio-Cio-San, announced for her opera’s premiere season.
The Ricordi House
La Wally — Adolfo Hohenstein, c.1895
A second Hohenstein opera poster, from earlier in the Ricordi run.
The Ricordi House
Turandot — Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1926
Puccini’s last opera, announced by the house that announced his first.
Underground & Railway
The Boat Race — London Underground Poster, 1920
The Tube, sold as modern art you could ride.
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Underground & Railway
Munich and Central Europe — LNER Poster, Ludwig Hohlwein, 1929
A German poster artist’s hand, hired by a British railway.
Underground & Railway
The Cornish Riviera — GWR Poster, Louis Burleigh Bruhl, 1928
The domestic seaside route, sold with the same confidence as the continental one.
The Bauhaus
Bauhaus Exhibition Poster — Joost Schmidt, 1923
The eye, the hand, and geometry, announcing the school itself.
The Bauhaus
Bauhaus Exhibition Postcard — László Moholy-Nagy, 1923
Type alone, arranged as architecture.
The Bauhaus
Bauhaus Exhibition Postcard — Farkas Molnár, 1923
A second designer’s hand, same exhibition, same postcard run.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
La Calavera Catrina — José Guadalupe Posada
The skeleton in a fine lady’s hat that outlived every regime it satirized.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Calavera Oaxaqueña — José Guadalupe Posada, 1903
A second skeleton, satirizing a different vanity.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Gran Calavera Eléctrica — José Guadalupe Posada, c.1905
A whole crowd of skeletons, wired for the modern age.
Vienna Secession
Plakat zur XII. Ausstellung der Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs. Secession. November–Dezember '01
Alfred Roller's towering 95 x 31.5 cm placard for the Vienna Secession's 1901 exhibition, lithographed in Wien.
Vienna Secession
Plakat für die XIV. Ausstellung der Secession (Beethoven exhibition)
Alfred Roller's 1902 lithograph for the Vienna Secession's fourteenth show — the legendary Beethoven exhibition.
Vienna Secession
Plakatentwurf für die „Erste grosse Kunstausstellung" der Secession
Moser's hand-painted design for the Secession's first exhibition poster — gouache and metal, not yet ink.
Vienna Secession
Plakat für die Möbelfirma „Jacob & Josef Kohn" (Russisches Plakat)
A barefoot woman in colour lithograph, drawn by Koloman Moser to sell Viennese bentwood to Russia.
Vienna Secession
Tänzerin Miss Olga George
The dancer Olga George, drawn by Koloman Moser and printed in colour for the 1911 Wiener Werkstätte almanac.
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The Ricordi House
Giov(a)nni Gilardini, Napoli... Ombrelli, bastoni, ventagli, ecc. ecc.
Umbrellas, walking sticks and fans, sold to Naples in 1900 with the full lithographic firepower of Ricordi's Milan presses.
The Ricordi House
Pitiecor, salute e delizia dei bambini
Pitiecor, salute e delizia dei bambini - Metlicovitz's 1900 tonic ad, a lithograph nearly three times taller than it is wide.
The Ricordi House
Falstaff. Comédie lyrique en 3 actes par A. Boito, musique de G. Verdi
Hohenstein's Falstaff, re-set in French for the opera's 1894 Paris opening.
The Ricordi House
Falstaff. Commedia lirica in 3 atti di A. Boito, musica de G. Verdi
Hohenstein's Italian bill for Verdi's last opera, printed by Ricordi at a scale meant to stop traffic.
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Underground & Railway
Poster, The North Downs, London Underground
Kauffer flattens the North Downs into blocks of green and brown - modernism arriving on a London wall in 1915.
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Underground & Railway
Poster, Winter Sales, for London Underground
Wind-blown shoppers flattened to blue, black and orange: Winter Sales are best reached by the Underground.
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Underground & Railway
Poster, Godstone, London Underground
A Surrey quarry and its working men, cut into flat planes of colour for the 1915 Underground.
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Underground & Railway
Poster, Oxhey Woods, London Underground
Rolling hills flattened into simplified bands of colour, lettered OXHEY WOODS - Kauffer's Underground debut, 1915.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Skeletons hawking their wares and shouting about teetotalers, drunkards, old men and kids, tomcats and working girls
Skeleton vendors bawl their pitch at teetotalers, drunkards, tomcats and working girls alike.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Skeletons of the good defenders
Skeletons dance across cheap orange paper — Posada's calavera broadside, printed to be bought, read, and thrown away.
Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Cupid's Skeleton (La Calavera de Cupido)
Love as a grinning skeleton — Posada arms a calavera Cupid and lets the bone show through.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Richard Strauss-Woche, festival poster
Hohlwein's Strauss festival poster: one robed figure, one tall staff, and almost nothing else.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Kaloderma Seife, Gelée, Puder
Soap, gel and powder sold Hohlwein-style — a full-page advert torn from Jugend, July 1924.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Zoologischer Garten München
Hohlwein's Munich zoo poster: flat lithographic slabs of colour, no outline, no fuss.
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Plakat — the Object Poster
Opel
The Sachplakat in one move: the car, the word Opel, and nothing else.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Elegante Welt
Thirty-five Pfennig for the elegant world, lettered by Berlin's best poster printer.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Bar Riche
Berlin nightlife rendered in two or three colours and a lot of nerve.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Maxim Bar
Erdt at twenty-four, advertising a bar with a poster that already knows what to leave out.
Plakat — the Object Poster
Hier zeichnet man die Kriegsanleihe
Bernhard strips the war bond appeal to its bones: flat colour, one command, a deadline you cannot miss.
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Plakat — the Object Poster
Wiener Werkstätte Mode Stoffe Kunstgewerbe Messausstellungen, Messepalast und Kärntnerstrasse 32
A woman's hair becomes a grape vine - the Vienna Workshops advertising themselves in their own ornamental language.
Vienna Secession
Plakat für „Frommes Kalender"
An hourglass, a woman in period dress, and lettering Moser drew himself — Vienna, 1899.
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The Ricordi House
Edgar, dramma lirico in 3 atti di F. Fontana, musica di G. Puccini (affiche avant la lettre)
Hohenstein's colour lithograph for Puccini's Edgar - the opera poster before the letterpress was ever laid over it.
The Ricordi House
G. Ricordi & C° music publishers, London. Lays for little Ones
Hohenstein turns his opera-poster brush on a book of children's songs for Ricordi's London house, signed and dated '98.
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Posada — Broadsides & Calaveras
Skeletons (calaveras) dancing and drinking, corrida in bottom section
Calaveras drink and dance above a printed ballad, with a coquettish waitress at the centre of the trouble.