Page 59 - Swann Galleries - Modernist Posters - Sale 2314 - May 13, 2013

JAMES HARLEY MINTER (DATES UNKNOWN)
69 ● BAL PA’ PILLON. 1931.
193/4x14 inches, 50 1/4 x351/2 cm. Crane Howard Litho. Co.
Condition B+: sharp vertical and horizontal folds as issued; repaired tears, creases and restoration in margins
and image; addressee in crayon.
The Kokoon Club was founded in 1911 by Carl Moellman and William Sommer, young American
artists inspired by the Dadaist movement and similar avant-garde organizations in Europe. The club’s
yearly costume balls began 1913. This decadent, cubist-influenced image is an electric, microcosmic
view of Cleveland’s avant-garde artistic community. Presaging the psychedelic posters of the 1960s and
reflecting many of the concurrent graphic art trends in Europe, this poster, and the entire series for
the club’s yearly balls, are bright, bold, daring and stand out as exciting and innovative examples of
American design. Each poster also served as an invitation to the event, with the invitee’s name written
in across the bottom. Kokoon p. 3. [2,000/3,000]