Today's example is considerably different from the others that I've shared on this blog... it is the fantastic (and scarce) Bicentennial Railroad poster. It was created in 1976 in an edition of 144 (mine is #10), and is a real masterpiece of the printmaker's art. I have the little parchment certificate stating that this serigraph was created with SIXTY colors. Wow! Compare that to the older posters that used 6 or 7 colors. As you can see, sixty colors allowed for details and subtlety not possible on the earlier examples.
Here's a closer look at the magnificently-rendered C.K. Holliday...
... and another detail showing the "brass" eagle decoration at the bottom .
As far as I know, only two posters were produced in this laborious 60-color style; this Bicentennial train poster, and a Jungle Cruise poster. If there are any others, I'd love to see them!
Wow! Awesome, beautiful, rich, dynamic. Easily among the best such I've ever seen. It must be amazing in person you lucky hooman you!
ReplyDeleteINCREDIBLE BEAUTY !!! WOW !!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing...I didn't notice those back in 1976!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely wonderful. I can't imagine what the screening process was like.
ReplyDeleteTo think, this was created by hand, without Adobe Illustrator! A true work of art, for sure! I can't wrap my mind around how they registered 60 screens, and how did the artist manage 60 layers of colors?! Amazing...
ReplyDeleteThe colors and lines are so complex this actually looks like some of the current posters! We did two color silk-screening in highschool and it was very difficult to work with, I can' imagine 60 colors!
ReplyDeleteThese must have been expensive to produce...
Your close up of the CK Holiday reminds me of Licorice Pizza...
AWESOME POST(er), thanks Major!
Was a version of this poster used within the park (or is it still), but without the mention of the Bicentennial at the bottom?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm sure these cost a fortune to make!
ReplyDeleteTokyoMagic!, I don't know if these posters were ever displayed in the park, but they did create a version without the Bicentennial stuff afterwards (I don't have one of those).
You know, I started to get sick of all of the Bicentennial stuff at the time (my room was even decorated for it) but now the stuff looks great and fresh again! This poster is a beautiful example!
ReplyDeleteThis is the "grandfather" of the second generation Disney park attraction posters.....they were created by Rudy Lord and Jim Michaelson. The 1976 Jungle Cruise poster was the winner of the Golden Squeegy Award of 1976 -a silkscreening Guild Award--in fact WED/WDI won a good deal of these awards -mostly with attraction posters. See my blog on Disney Park Attraction Posters for mor info (attractionposter.blogspot.com) These were known as the "window" posters, because most of them use a scence or vehicle within a frame or window. Most of the early Disneyland posters were planned to be redone much in this style, but costs put some on the backburner, and were never completed. The posters that got the go-ahead the fastest, were posters that could be used for multiple parks....like Jungle Cruise 1976, Pirates of The Caribbean 1982, Big Thunder Mountain RR, 1979....(notice the frames and wwindows on all of these..??) Others got put on hold or were never completed because there were only at one park (Matterhorn Mountain Bobsleds 1978, 20,000 Leagues Under The sea, 1980) If the attraction had a sponsor, sometimes there was a budget for the poster (PeopleMover Thru Supper Speed Tunnel 1977
ReplyDeletefor example. Actually this poster was so over budget, that it's final two detail screens were left off -entirely...this also ate into the budget for the Space Mountain poster,and at that point could NOT be screened and was offset printed.
Other posters that are as elabortaly screened include The Mickey Mouse Revue 1983, Tokyo Disneyland, or the Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour.
so special...thanks to everyone for all the insight... :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great info, Mike! I'll post photos of my '76 Jungle Cruise poster one o' these days.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I can't wait for your book if it is full of information like this!