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ADOLPHE MOURON CASSANDRE (1901-1968)
89
ÉTOILE DU NORD. 1927.
41
1
/
2
x29
1
/
2
inches, 105
1
/
2
x75 cm. Hachard & Cie., Paris.
Condition B / B-: extensive overpainting and replaced losses in margins and image; repaired tears, creases
and overpainting in margins and image and along vertical and horizontal folds; foxing in image.
L’Étoile du Nord
(The North Star) was an absolute revolution in advertising when it first appeared in
1927. Although advertising a Pullman train, it was startlingly new to have a travel poster that depicted
no landscape, no destination, and no train. The pure and powerful image is a tribute to the dramatic
use of perspective, with the train represented metaphorically by the star dancing on the horizon where
many rails converge in the distance. To keep the image as clean and unobstructed as possible,
Cassandre corrals the typography at the very bottom of the composition and then organizes it in a neat
and structured frame around the border. Here he also develops one of his signature design elements:
viewing an object from a low angle to make it seem larger than life and more impressive, a technique
he perfected in his 1935 poster for the
Normandie
. Through his association with Maurice Moyrand,
who was the agent for the printer L. Danel, (and with whom he would form the Alliance Graphique
in 1930), Cassandre was commissioned to create two posters for the Chemins de fer du Nord in 1927.
Mouron pl. 11, Cassandre / Weill pl. 11, Suntory 48, p. 72, Reina Sophia p. 161, Modern Poster p.
151, Weill 339.
[800/1,200]