Poster 4

#(4) VELO SPORT BICYCLES:

First edition of 3000 copies, of which 13 are signed.

1970 18" x 24" Three colors (this edition uses screen tints)

Client: Peter Rich, Velo-Sport Cyclery, 1650 Grove Street, Berkeley CA 94703. Telephone (510) 849-0437

Influence: Early 20th century locomotive illustrations

(Communication Arts, January/February 1977; One Hundred Years of Bicycle Posters, Jack Rennert, Darien House, 1973; Le Machine Celibi, Edited by Jean Claire & Harald Szeemann, Rizzoli, 1975) (facsimile)

Second edition of 2000, of which 100 copies are signed. 1973 Five colors Alteration of text, signed in the plate

Third edition of 4943 of which 100 copies are signed 1-100, 26 are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and four sets are signed as progressives. Artwork modified, color separations remade May 1, 1975 Five colors Artwork modified, color separations remade A-Z: Artist's own use. All signed copies to The Poster, San Francisco May 1, 1975 Five colors Artwork modified, color separations remade A-Z: Artist's own use.

A limited number of these unsigned prints are available for sale now from the Vello Sport website.

This poster says it all. After a bit of batting around, peering into this artistic style and that, trying them on for size, I settled on the Vienna Secession and the Jugendstil-the German Art Nouveau-as models. They, in turn, draw from the deep well of Japanese ukio-e woodblock prints of the Edo period, to which the West was exposed from the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The Velo-Sport design is bilaterally symmetrical, employs avian symbolism, contrasts light and heavy elements-the tiny bicyclists racing the great death-symbol steam locomotive-and cheerfully throws together two completely different kinds of perspective. My fascination with complementary colors, particularly blue and orange, may stem ultimately from childhood exposure to The Bookhouse Books, dating from 1920 and still-so far as I know-in print. To soften the transition from one area of color into the next, I adopted the soft grey or pale color outline motif from Otto Obermeier and Ludwig Hohlwein, though it was a common enough design element through the early part of this century.