Duke Ellington Theater Marquee Mock-up

Unusual and graphically striking period theatre marquee mock-up for an unknown appearance by the great composer and bandleader, accomplished and signed by Hollywood, theater, & poster painter Ralph Byrer. Pencil and gouache on fiberboard, mounted on matboard. In fine condition.  Mock-up measures 12 1/4" x 4 1/4", mounted and framed without glass to 17 3/4" x 9 3/4" overall. 

With a typed text affixed to frame verso recording the circumstances of the work's creation: "The sketches on display at the Elaine Horwitch Galleries were made during the 30s, 40s, and early 50s, a very exciting and romantic period of movie making, according to Byrer. After a picture was booked into a theatre, the material from press books, 8" x 10" glossy stills, and other paper accessories was fitted together into the artist's conception of the best-selling design and color scheme. The sketch was then used as a pattern or model to complete the finished advertising material. The sketches were usually made to the scale of one inch to one foot, and are exact layouts and color schemes of theatre fronts, lobby displays. girders that hung under the canopy, and other means of theatre advertising. Ralph W Byrer. a former Midwesterner, has resided in Sedona, Arizona, in the Oak Creek Canyon of Red Rock Country fame for the past ten Years. Mr. Byrer, who is a graduate of the Fort Wayne, Indiana art school, taught art at that school, did postgraduate work at the Chicago Art Institute. And then joined the Poster Department of the Balaban and Katz theatre chain in Chicago in 1927. During his career as a poster artist. He also worked in cities including Houston, Memphis, Minneapolis, before terminating his days as a poster artist in 1954 when he became manager of the Coronado Theatre in Rockford, Illinois." (23003)

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Jazz

Ephemera

Art

$750.00

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