Auction Highlights — Art Deco at 100: Iconic Posters from the William W. Crouse Collection — April 24, 2025

On the centennial of the famous Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the Parisian exhibition which gave the world the term “Art Deco,” Swann is proud to offer for sale selected highlights from the most significant private collection of its kind. This collection first appeared in 2013 in print as The Art Deco Poster, Vendome Press, and then as an exhibition at New York’s Poster House Museum from September 2023 through February 2024.

At the heart of this collection is one of the most famous graphic triptychs ever designed—Adolphe Mouron Cassandre’s Dubo Dubon Dubonnet, cinematic in their frame-by-frame storytelling, they depict a man drinking and literally filling himself with a delicious apéritif. To say that this particular triptych represents a trifecta of superlatives may seem like a gratuitous play on words, but in fact, these images are a cultural, historic and artistic touchstone of twentieth-century design. Immediately beloved, the little drinking man became widely used by the company over the years; appearing in countless settings and in various media, immortalizing the brand. These exceedingly rare large images are the middle size of three formats published in 1932. This was the very first appearance of the legendary brand mascot logotype. Crouse purchased the posters in 2002 at the Gail Chisholm Gallery in New York City during an exhibition of “A.M. Cassandre and the French Avant-Garde Posters.” They have been in his collection since.

In addition to the work of A.M. Cassandre, the William W. Crouse Collection is replete with a pan-European survey of graphic design: Alexei Brodovitch, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Charles Loupot, Paul Colin, Willem Ten Broek, Federico Seneca, Sepo, Leonetto Cappiello, Francis Bernard, Niklaus Stoecklin, Ashley Havinden, Giuseppe Riccobaldi del Bava, Marcello Nizzoli, Fix-Masseau, René Vincent, and Herbert Matter are just a few of the renowned artists whose works are represented in this landmark sale.