POSTERS BY E. MCKNIGHT KAUFFER
E. McKnight Kauffer, Aldous Huxley [Foreword]
E. [Edward] McKnight Kauffer, Aldous Huxley [Foreword]: POSTERS BY E. MCKNIGHT KAUFFER. New York: Museum of Modern Art, February 1937. First Edition [2,750 copies printed by the Spiral Press]. Octavo. Screen-printed stapled, stiff wrappers. 28 pp. Plates. Original silkscreen cover design by E. McKnight Kauffer. From the library of Gene and Helen Federico, with their name stamp on front endpaper. A near fine copy with a trace of wear overall.
7.5 x 10 softcover catalog with 28 pages and 12 black and white illustrations of posters designed by E. McKnight Kauffer for the London Underground, Great Western Railways, Shell, and other English clients. Foreword by Aldous Huxley. Brief Biography and Note on Technique by E. McKnight Kauffer.
“Most advertising artists spend their time elaborating symbols that stand for something different from the commodity they are advertising. Soap and refrigerators, scent and automobiles, stockings, holiday re- sorts, sanitary plumbing and a thousand other articles are advertised by means of representations of young females disporting themselves in opulent surroundings. Sex and money—these would seem to be the two main interests of civilised human beings. That is why even aperients and engineering jobs have to be advertised in terms of some symbol of wealth or eroticism. McKnight Kauffer is also a symbolist; but the symbols with which he deals are not symbols of something else; they stand for the particular things which are at the moment under consideration. Thus, forms symbolical of mechanical power are used to advertise powerful machines; forms symbolical of space, loneliness and distance to advertise a holiday resort where prospects are wide and houses few.“ —Aldous Huxley
E. McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) was first exposed to modern European Art at the Armory Show (1913) in Chicago. Afterwards he was sponsored by University of Utah Professor McKnight to study painting in Paris. Kauffer took McKnight's name out of gratitude. He travelled to England in 1914 and remained there until 1940. He made his name as a poster artist with commissions for the London Underground, where publicity manager Frank Pick distributed Kauffer's designs. Inspired by contemporary artistic movements -- Futurism, Cubism, Art Deco and Surrealism -- Kauffer created hundreds of posters for the London Underground, Shell, British Petroleum and Eastman and Sons. [emckk]