The new year has hardly begun, but still those auctions keep on coming. Although without much in them to cheer me up on a grey January morning.
Mind you, in the case of the Christies Ski Sale, I can hardly complain, because it’s only doing what it says on the tin. There are lots of posters of skiing and not a lot else.
In amongst them, there are two Daphne Paddens, for Pall Mall, which means that they combine skiing with the rather less fashionable activity of smoking.
Both still warrant estimates of £800-£1,200 each though, perhaps because no one does rock climbing with quite such dash, or even coolness, these days.
Elsewhere, there are mountains and skiers, alleviated by the occasional chair lift. Some of them are by the great European poster designers, while others aren’t.
Herbert Leupin, 1958, est. £800-1,200
Bernard Villemot, 1954, est. £1,500-2,000
And that’s about it, really.
At Swann Galleries forthcoming sale, there are also pictures of skiing, along with the usual run of Art Nouveau, posters of bicycles and so on. And a very few British items.
Pretty much the only one which I like with any degree of enthusiasm is this Betty Swanwick.
Betty Swanwick, Wild or Savage, 1954, est $600-900
It’s the pictorial half of a pair poster and rather lovely.
There are a handful of British railway and travel posters too, including this streamlined special by Pat Keely, celebrating the days when even the London to Brighton line had names for its trains.
Pat Keely, Southern Belle, 1930, est $2,000- 3,000
Not even eBay can save us this week. All it can muster up is this Daphne Padden coach poster. On the plus side, it’s an image that I’ve never seen before. The minus side is all too clear from the picture.
Even the listing says ‘This poster has seen better days’, and I’m not about to argue with that.
But there is some joy to be had. St Judes tweeted to say that they won the Tom Eckersley Cat O’Nine Lives which was up for sale on eBay this week (and I never quite got round to mentioning despite the fact that the listing very kindly mentioned Quad Royal).
I hope it’s very happy in its new home. If you want to see some more of the book, I posted some of the images last year and you can find them here.
