Lot 402: Gansser Pelze.

Gansser Pelze.
EMIL ALFRED NEUKOMM (1906-1948)
Paul Bender, Zollikon-Zuerich
Cond A.
It's highly unlikely that anyone-no matter how cutting-edge and decadent-attended the grand fetes and soirees of the early 20th-century draped in tiger pelts. And yet the big cat apparently served as something of an identifying signpost for the furriers of Europe, alerting the animal aficionado to the exotic wares an establishment would stock. Also seen in a Horvath design for a Hungarian fashion house during the same era (see PAI-XXX, 532), the ferocious feline is called into play for Basel's Gansser house. Graphically spectacular and unquestionably engaging, one has to imagine-regardless of which side of the fur debate a person aligns themselves-that the days of such politically-incorrect advertising have gone the way of the dinosaur. Or anything other than a faux-fur coat for that matter. A line of text under Neukomm's signature informs us that his inspiration was taken "from an original Japanese design," though no specific artist is mentioned. A native of Bern, Neukomm studied graphic art in Strasbourg. By 1930, he had joined his older brother Fred-also an accomplished posterist-in heading an agency in Paris. Both returned to Switzerland in 1939. Suffering from tuberculosis, Emil worked intermittently at Jemoli in Zurich and for the Haas type foundry in Munchenstein between rest cures in Davos.

35 3/4 x 50 3/8 in./90.8 x 128 cm