Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Showcases Vintage Aviation Art and Advertising in Lauder Postcard Exhibit

By S. Mark Rhodes

The Airplane at Tokorozaw, No. 5 (from an unidentified series) - Artist Unknown, Japanese. Leonard A. Lauder Collection of Japanese Postcards. (Photograph Copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)The venerable Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is in the midst of an exhibition called The Postcard Age: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection.  This collection features about 400 postcards from a plethora of artists and designers both in Europe in the Americas. The exhibit is organized by themes, such as  “Style,” “About Town” and “Women,” as well as sections showcasing post card images featuring “Power, Speed and Flight.”  

The “Power, Speed and Flight” niche of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibit features several early and sublime (teens, 1920s and 30s) representations of flight and aviation.  The most striking flight/aviation oriented works in this collection typically have a stylized quality often showing heavy influences and elements drawn from Art Deco & Futurist styles.  A particularly fine example of this is the postcard commemorating the 1934 airshow Taliedo. Great aviation day, 8 July 1934 Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive - Promised Gift of Leonard A. Lauder (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts) at Taliedo (near Milan) which features strong silhouettes of aircraft that manage to have both a sinister and storybook quality that anticipates pop- and graphic-novel-style art of the late 20th century.

All in all, the exhibit is a great reminder of the romantic nature of early aviation and the impact, both visual and spiritual, that the notion of flight had on the world.  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is also to be commended for such a creatively curated exhibit that recognizes the artful quality in such a beautiful collection of postcard ephemera.

For more on this exhibit and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston visit www.mfa.org/