Poster, Willy Petzold, Internationale Hygiene Ausstellung, Dresden, 1930

Willy Petzold Internationale Hygiene Ausstellung / Dresden vintage poster 1930 sight: 35.25 h x 22.625 w in (90 x 57 cm) The all-seeing eye as envisioned by Franz von Stuck made its initial appearance in 1911 in order to promote Dresden's inaugural International Hygiene Exposition (see PAI-XLIII, 594), an event attended by more than five-million visitors.

This exhibition combined state-of-the-art technologies and unprecedented lifelike displays and models to impart knowledge about human anatomy and address issues of proactive health care and diet. The following year, the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum would be established in Dresden, due in large part to the efforts of mouthwash magnate, Karl August Lingner (1861-1916), a major proponent of the first expo. More expo's would follow and von Stuck's eye would once again reappear in the promotional material for the 1930 hygiene exposition. In 1931, however, the organizer's of the expo called upon Petzold to bring a different vision to the public.

And while he didn't stray too far afield from von Stuck's conception, he did stylize the eye a bit further, widening it and surrounding it with a golden starburst pattern and making it the sole artistic feature of the design (von Stuck's poster also contained stars and Grecian architecture). Dr. Guntzchen Stiftung, Dresden Provenance: Collection of William Crouse Exhibited: Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy and Germany, 1918-1936, 1 October 2010 - 9 January 2011, Guggenheim Museum, New York (traveled to Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao) | Art Deco: The Golden Age of Illustration, 31 August 2025 - 29 March 2026, Sarasota Art Museum, Florida Literature: The Art Deco Poster, Crouse, p. 77; PAI-L, 397 (var) This work will ship from Chicago, Illinois.