Large Mystic South Africa Gayle Ullman Johannesburg Ca. 1950 Poster

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Description

Gayle Ulmann's famous "Mystic South Africa" poster, c1950
Measures approx: 
With frame: 45"" x 33 1/2"" x 2""
Poster size: … Read more Gayle Ulmann's famous "Mystic South Africa" poster, c1950
Measures approx: 
With frame: 45"" x 33 1/2"" x 2""
Poster size: 35"" x 23""

Looks to be in great condition. May show reflections on the glass due to lighting conditions.

As found on HeritagePortal: Life in South Africa

He landed in Cape Town in 1936 and took a train to Johannesburg. He was struck by the vast emptiness and the waterless riverbeds he encountered on his trip through the Karoo to the Highveld. Johannesburg appeared ugly to him. He had never been in such a young town before. It was the year of the Golden Jubilee. However, his distaste turned into fascination. He describes the architecture: ‘There were miniature Greek columns supporting corrugated-iron roofs, wooden fretwork arches, fringes of lace pressed in steel to hide the crudeness of the beams, pseudo-Tudor, pseudo-Rococco, Victorian Neo Gothic, all gaily mingling with stark, ill-proportioned, cheerless and often badly copied Bauhaus style.”

As he learned more about Johannesburg and the short history of the gold-mining dorp, he began, with understanding, to develop a kind of love for it. He was later to complete a series of spontaneous drawings and paintings of early Johannesburg which were acquired by the Africana Museum to be preserved as evidence of the changing Johannesburg scene.

He felt that starving artists belonged in Paris, but not Johannesburg. He decided that his work in South Africa would be a designer, and he decided never to use the word artist to describe himself. He made an immediate impact in South Africa when he designed an overseas travel poster called ‘Mystic South Africa’. It showed two giraffe drinking at the edge of the pool. The poster was chosen as the best travel poster in an international exhibition of travel posters. Further work followed and he was offered numerous commissions of the most varied kind from murals in restaurants to sculptured fireplaces and mosaic bathrooms in private houses.



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