Lot 491: GUY SERRE2e Sweepstake de Monte-Carlo/9eme Grand Prix de Monaco.

GUY SERRE
2e Sweepstake de Monte-Carlo/9eme Grand Prix de Monaco.
How convenient that the Second Monte Carlo Sweepstakes and the ninth running of the Monaco Grand Prix took place over the same torrid summer weekend in 1937. And since there's really no need to mention much more than when a drawing is taking place in order to call attention to a sweepstakes, Serre sagely posts it on a sign being passed by one of the Grand Prix's participants in his photomontage poster design that also gives credit to photographer Pierre Walter. But what we have here is that poster design used as a program cover in fact, we have no hard evidence to indicate that it was ever realized as a poster. However, what we do have is a color scheme tells the viewer right up front that the action in both events are going to be red-hot, but it's done in such a playful manner that the atmosphere Serre creates is practically confectionary as well. The winner of the 1937 race was Manfred von Brauchitsch (1905-2003), who despite winning forty-five races over a six-year span in the 1930s, was nicknamed 'Der Pechvogel' (roughly translated: 'Mr. Bad Luck') for the races he lost, his hard-driving impetuosity and his imperious Prussian officer-class mien. When he died at the age of ninety-seven, he was the last surviving winner of a prewar Grand Prix. Von Brauchitsch rode to victory in the car displayed in this poster the Mercedes Benz 'Silver Arrow,' a Nazi state-backed vehicle that was in the race only during 1936 and 1937 (the Grand Prix wasn't run between 1938 and 1947).
Imp. Robaudy, Cannes

8 x 12 in./20.2 x 30.5 cm

1937.0

Cond A.Framed.

Imp. Robaudy, Cannes

Imp. Robaudy, Cannes