The Art Institute of Chicago's bronze lion gets the whole foreground, and the aircraft has to make do with the sky.
Joseph Binder designed the poster around 1957 for United Air Lines, one of a set of eight travel posters he made for the airline. He trained as a lithographer, studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and set up his own studio in 1924. He moved to the United States permanently in 1936. He already knew Chicago.
In the early 1930s he lectured at the Art Institute of Chicago, the building whose lion he later put at the centre of this poster.
On the poster
The bronze lion fills the foreground in flat planes of olive green against a warm amber cityscape. Michigan Avenue stretches behind the plinth, with 1950s pedestrians in bright dresses and pale suits, yellow taxis and dark saloon cars. Above it all a twin-engine propeller aircraft threads a cerulean sky. "UNITED AIR LINES" runs in wide white capitals along the top, and "CHICAGO" anchors the base.
About this print
A digitally restored reproduction, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art paper with pigment inks.

