PAOLO FEDERICO GARRETTO (1903-1991) AMILCAR / ELLE EST PASSÉE! 1929.
46¼x62 inches, 117½x157½ cm. H. Chachoin, Paris.
Condition B+: small losses at edges; repaired tears, creases and abrasions in margins and image.
Garretto employs two established visual techniques to help convey his message. The advertised car has passed out of the frame, leaving only tire tracks and a plume of smoke behind. Yet, clearly it was such a car that it caught the eye and the attention of a trendy and handsomely dressed couple, who stand on the street corner looking after it. For the rest of us who were too slow to see it, there happens to be a poster within the poster depicting the car (ingeniously posted over other posters, whose corners are visible). Garretto was primarily a political cartoonist who became an international artistic star in the 1920s. He also received large commissions from American magazines like Vanity Fair, and began spending three or four months every year in the States.