Last month, the Kemistry Gallery in London held a show presenting the poster art of legendary graphic artist Saul Bass.
Even if you don’t recognize the name, if you’re a film fan then you know his work well. If I say Vertigo, chances are one of the first things you’ll think of is that iconic movie poster of an angular black silhouette falling into blood red background. Bass is responsible for those marvelously clever, Cubist-flavored film posters from the Cold War era that absolutely summed up the tired-but-true cliche: a picture is worth a thousand words. Bass’ first work on poster art was for Otto Preminger‘s Carmen Jones and, impressed with the results, Preminger pressed Bass for ideas on the title sequences. Bass’ work helped pushed forward the artistic possibilities for opening/closing credit sequences and embarked him upon a highly successful and influential career as one of the preeminent graphic artists working in Hollywood.
I’m gutted to have missed Kemistry’s exhibit, and present a selection of their featured prints below:








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